Obesity makes taste buds disappear — in mice, anyway

Author: Aimee Cunningham / Source: Science News for Students

Mice that chowed down on too many calories gained weight.

In another sense, these plump animals became big losers: One in every four of their taste buds disappeared. The findings come from a new study of animals on a high-fat diet.

A taste bud is a collection of 50 to 100 cells. Found on the surface of the tongue, these cells sense whether a food is sweet, sour, bitter, salty or umami (savory). Taste bud cells help identify safe and nourishing food. Some also turn on reward centers in the brain.

Each bud lasts only about 10 days. So the tongue must constantly make new ones. Special progenitor (Pro-GEN-ih-tur) cells will give rise to the replacement taste buds.

Studies had suggested that a sense of taste can dull in people with obesity. Scientists don’t know why this might happen. But if taste does weaken, “then maybe you don’t get the positive feeling that you should [from eating],” says biologist Robin Dando. He works at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. There, he’s been using animals to probe the biology of taste.

His team’s new study is looking into whether a diminished sense of taste might explain some overeating. People might find less satisfaction in a healthy portion of food.

The issue is an important one. Nearly one in five U.S. children and teens are overweight to the point of obesity.

Heart disease, diabetes and cancer are among health problems that have been linked with being so seriously overweight.

For one new study, Dando’s group compared two groups of mice from the…

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