How Obesity Kills Taste Buds



I believe that virtually everyone wants to eat healthier, but there are a number of things that seem always get in the way. You also have some taste buds on the roof of your mouth and inner surface of your cheeks. But the loss of taste could be fueling obesity itself—or at least help to explain why losing weight is so hard—by driving humans to consume more and more of the sugary, salty, and fatty foods that trigger the reward center in the brain.

At birth, most people have between 2,000 and 10,000 taste buds. Once food enters the mouth, its chemical components find their way to the taste buds. This sharpened my perception of hotness as it contrasted with sweetness, and the use of salt to bring out flavors.

The receptors are like locks, and the bitter, sweet, umami, and fatty molecules are like keys: They snap together in specific ways, and when they do, the cells send signals to the brain reporting the molecules' presence. Umami is also the taste associated with MSG (monosodium glutamate), an additive that is often used in foods as a flavor enhancer.

Often the change is so gradual you barely notice it. That wouldn't be a problem, except that it can affect your health — studies find people with impaired ability to smell and taste tend to follow less healthful diets. Just a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to most food with brighten with a salty taste.

Fat plays a huge role in how food tastes when it's cooked. Salty is the taste of sodium and chloride (salt crystals) and the mineral salts potassium and magnesium. Food containing table salt is mainly what we taste as salty. There are about 12. Each one can have thousands of bitter-sensitive taste buds.

Sourness signals not only spoilage (rotten foods often go sour) but also under-ripeness, which makes sense in light of how much we need sugar. To understand why these foods mess with your mind, first think about your tongue. The taste buds for the basic flavours are not distributed equally across the tongue.

This combination of qualities takes place because during the world taste chewing or sipping, all sensory information originates from a common location: whatever it is we're snacking on. Further, "flavor" is a more accurate term for what we commonly refer to as taste; therefore, smell not only influences but is an integral part of flavor.

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