Being severely obese may change a person’s ability to taste sweet foods and lead to more weight gain, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS One.
Researchers at University of Buffalo who conducted the study concluded that diet-induced obesity significantly alters the responsiveness of the peripheral taste cells that are responsible for the initial detection of taste stimuli and for sending that taste information to the brain.
Kathryn Medler, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo, says it's possible that the trouble detecting sweetness may lead obese mice to eat more than their leaner counterparts to get the same payoff.
For the study, researchers compared 25 normal mice to 25 of their littermates who were fed a high-fat diet and became obese. After 10 weeks on the high-fat diet, researchers used calcium imaging to measure how taste-evoked calcium signals were affected in the obese mice discovering that significantly fewer taste receptor cells were responsive to some appetitive taste stimuli, while the numbers of taste cells that were sensitive to aversive taste stimuli did not change.
The researchers noted that further research is imperative to determine the connection between taste, appetite and obesity because it could lead to new methods of encouraging healthy eating.
Kathryn Medler, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo, says it's possible that the trouble detecting sweetness may lead obese mice to eat more than their leaner counterparts to get the same payoff.
For the study, researchers compared 25 normal mice to 25 of their littermates who were fed a high-fat diet and became obese. After 10 weeks on the high-fat diet, researchers used calcium imaging to measure how taste-evoked calcium signals were affected in the obese mice discovering that significantly fewer taste receptor cells were responsive to some appetitive taste stimuli, while the numbers of taste cells that were sensitive to aversive taste stimuli did not change.
The researchers noted that further research is imperative to determine the connection between taste, appetite and obesity because it could lead to new methods of encouraging healthy eating.
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