Our tastes buds provide take us on a wonderful journey of different types of tastes and sensations as we experience various foods.
But sometimes the ability to taste food diminishes in some people and this causes them to reach for more intense tasting foods such as more sweeter foods, according to new research.
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Previous research has shown that people with obesity have a weaker sense of taste, but no one had tested, till now, if the weakened taste alters intake causing people to choose more intensely tasting food.
Researchers from Cornell University conducted randomised trial consisting of 51 healthy adults. They were randomly given varying concentration of tea containing Gymnema sylvestre (GS) which is known to temporarily block sweet receptors. Some of the other participants were given control tea.
After temporarily dulling the taste buds, the researchers had the participants sample various foods with different levels of sweetness.
In the blind tests, the participants were given low, medium or high concentrations of the herb GS in their tea and the participants added their favoured levels of sweetness to it depending on how bland it tasted to them.
The researchers found that without realising the participants consumed 8 to 12 per cent sucrose. Participants whose receptors were blocked began to prefer higher concentrations of sugar.
Researchers found that a person with a 20 per cent reduction in the ability to taste sweet will seek out an extra teaspoon of sugar to reach an optimal level of sweetness compared to a person whose sense of taste has not been altered.
The results show that people with a diminished sense of taste will choose sweeter foods to compensate for the lack of taste and to attain a satisfactory level of reward.
As a result they are more likely to consume higher-calorie foods which can easily lead to weight gain.
People with obesity who have a diminished sense of taste are more likely to gravitate towards sugary foods while seeking out more intense stimuli to make up for the loss of taste.
As such, taste dysfunction is an important factor which should be taken into consideration to understand the development of obesity and why some people reach for more sugary types of food while others do not.
Taste is such an individual thing and while our taste buds help us experience wonderful foods, they also help us understand the changes in our eating habits and serve as markers for weight gain and associated problems with our health.
Source: Appetite
