Hyderabad: Obesity could be caused by poor sense of taste said, a new research by Cornell University. The study claims that losing one’s sensation of taste buds leads to weight gain as people with diminished sense of taste seek food which is more in sugar, salt or fat to achieve the same level of taste sensation as people with normal taste buds.
Dr Vimalakar Reddy, a surgical gastroenterologist says, “Though obesity is caused by many factors, poor taste buds is definitely one of them. When the sensation in one’s taste buds are less, they lose count of the quantity of food they are consuming and they don’t feel that they are eating too much. Imagine the the loss of taste we feel when we are sick. The sensory threshold is high but sensitivity is low. No matter what you eat, there is never a feeling of satisfaction.”
Although all the taste buds will experience the same loss of sensation, doctors claim that people suffer more from eating sweets. “If one eats too much of spicy food items it will lead to gastronitis but not obesity. Carbohydrates is the main culprit for obesity therefore people eating more sweets due to lack of taste is riskier.”
Patients suffering from the same seek more intense stimuli to attain satisfaction and therefore higher calorie drinks and food are consumed to get a sense of taste.
Dr Venugopal Pareek, a gastroenterologist says, “There is no cure for the same. A person with normal sense of taste would feel bloated after a can of coke but a person with poor taste buds could drink upto one litre of coke which is a lot of empty calories. Most of these patients get satisfied only with high carbohydrate drinks.”
The study claims that people with poor taste buds tend to consume more than six kilograms of sugar annually as opposed to a person with a normal sense of taste. The study was conducted with Gymnema Sylvestre being given to the participants in a cup of herbal tea. It is a herb known to suppress one’s sense of sweetness momentarily. Patients who were given more of the herb took more spoonfuls of sugar in their drinks.
