We all know obesity has become a growing problem through America in the recent years. Increased portion sizes, fast food restaurants on the rise and Americans just too busy to make a decent meal every night has led to major weight issues. Obesity clearly changes how you look on the outside but it also has many changes on the inside of your body. Increased risk for many diseases, heart problems, and cholesterol through the roof are a few that come to mind immediately. But have you every thought about your taste buds? Those little things that you must pass every time you take a bite of that big mac are also effected by obesity.
Previous studies have shown us that obesity can promote alterations in the brain, a new study has shown that it also changes the fundamental ways that our tongues react to different flavors. “The new study, conducted by biologists at the University at Buffalo, compared 25 normal mice to 25 of their littermates who were fed a high-fat diet and became obese” (Parker). In order to measure the animals response to the different tastes, the researchers looked closely at the “calcium signaling process that occurs in taste cells”(Parker). Dr. Kathryn Medler, head researcher, explains that when cells are able to recognize a specific taste, there is a temporary increase in calcium levels inside the cell which can then be measured.
The findings from this experiment found that the mice that were obese had fewer taste cells that were able to responded to a sweet stimuli. Out of the taste cells that did promote a reaction, only very weak responses were found. “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 Medler.
Past research has shown that obese people may not detect sweet or savory flavors as much as thinner people. Making them indulge in more eating in order to have the same satisfaction from food. This new data may help to find treatments that could help these taste cells get back to normal. Whether or not this would help the obesity crisis is unknown but only time could tell.
I find this study very interesting because obesity is a very prevalent problem in our world right now. The findings are very unique and not something I would have considered before reading the article. The problem is that the study was quite small and also preformed on mice. With a study that only has 50 test subjects it’s hard to fully trust the data coming out of it. It wouldn’t be that much harder to conduct this test on humans because you don’t need to necessarily make humans obese in order to do it. It might sound unethical but by using 25 already obese subjects and 25 thinner counterparts I think it would make the study more realistic. Overall, there are not too many flaws in the study besides those changes I think this is data that we might hear about in the future.
I had never heard of this theory before, and I’m glad that you brought it up. It’s very refreshing. When I was reading about the study itself, I took the time to think about your final comment about how they should use mice that were already obese and how the mice they used were force-fed until fat. It also believes that the mentality of continual eating and the satisfaction from eating drives the obese, but I believe that there is also a portion of people who genetically may be included toward this lifestyle. For them altering their taste buds might not solve what is already genetically predetermined in their genome. This article from Oxford Journals about the link between obesity and genetics says, “Although it is the obesogenic environment that has resulted in this major healthcare problem, it is acting by revealing a sub-population with a pre-existing genetic predisposition to excess adiposity” (http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/suppl_2/R124.full). So while there certainly are people who find themselves binge eating uncontrollably which a fix of taste buds could possibly cure, I believe that obesity will continue for those who have it written in their genome.
This is a very interesting article, I never would have guessed that obesity could affect the way we perceive different tastes and whether we do, at all. I think that this could definitely be a plausible explanation as to why obese people have a hard time dieting and controlling what they eat. However, as Tiffany pointed out before me, I do not think this study rules out reverse causation. It could be a case where previously altered taste buds cause people to eat more and more, to reach satisfaction. Thus, making them obese. To improve this study, researchers could have studied the mice before they reached obesity, to hone down on whether is truly is obesity that causes the problem. According to this article, there are many other factors that lead to taste bud disorders and changes such as drug use, pregnancy, and chemotherapy. According to Dr. Katz, all it takes is better food choices, “even cutting down on sugar and sodium intake for just a few weeks can change your preferences and your sensitivities to salt and fat.”
This is a very interesting viewpoint as far as why America is so obese – I’ve never heard an explanation like this before. However, I think there are a few key reasons that were left out. First of all, part of the reason for America’s obesity may be because they don’t have time and the increase in portion size, but I think a majority of the problems lies within the economy and the availability of healthy alternatives to people who come from a low-income household. Here’s an article from LA Times that discusses the differences between children who come from rich and poor families and how that effects their weight: http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/13/science/la-sci-adolescent-obesity-economic-divide-20140113. Another point I’d like to add is if they used 25 already obese humans, like you suggested, how would we know this loss of certain tastes isn’t a reverse causation of obesity? It makes sense that they used mice that weren’t already obese so they could compare how the fatty foods affect their litter-mates’ otherwise normal taste buds. What I think would’ve made this study better is if they tested the mice BEFORE they became obese so that it would present even more accurate results and better answer the question of whether being obese takes away certain tastes.