Obesity may alter the way we taste at the most fundamental level: by changing how our tongues react to different foods.
In a Nov. 13 study in the journal PLOS ONE, University at Buffalo biologists report that being severely overweight impaired the ability of mice to detect sweets.
Compared with slimmer counterparts, the plump mice had fewer taste cells that responded to sweet stimuli. What’s more, the cells that did respond to sweetness reacted relatively weakly.
The findings peel back a new layer of the mystery of how obesity alters our relationship to food.
“Studies have shown that obesity can lead to alterations in the brain, as well as the nerves that control the peripheral taste system, but no one had ever looked at the cells on the tongue that make contact with food,” said lead scientist Kathryn Medler, PhD, UB associate professor of biological sciences.
