Dulled taste may prompt more calories on path to obesity
"We found that the more people lost sensitivity to sweetness, the more sugar they wanted in their foods," said lead author Robin Dando, assistant professor of food science, whose research has been published online by the journal Appetite . Nutritionists, researchers and doctors have long suspected a connection between diminished taste sensitivity and obesity, but no one had tested if losing taste altered intake. In his research, Dando temporarily dulled the taste buds of study participants and had them sample foods of varying sugar concentrations. For the blind tests, the researchers provided participants with an herbal tea with low, medium or high concentrations of a naturally occurring herb, Gymnema Sylvestre, which is known to temporarily block sweet receptors. During the testing, participants added their favored levels of sweetness to bland concoctions. Without realizing it, they gravitated to 8 to 12 percent sucrose. Soft drinks are generally around 10 percent s...