drtbear1967
Musclechemistry Board Certified Member
In his book, The End of Overeating, Dr. Kessler writes about hyperpalatable foods – processed foods designed to spark the reward system in the brain. These junk foods are a concoction of sugar, fat and salt. Alone those things aren't that powerful, but the trio creates a feedback loop that leads to hyper-eating – it triggers cravings, overeating, and leaves you wanting more, even when you’re full. Now, a new study shows that the end result – gaining fat – can even change how food tastes.
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Researchers took mice and got them fat, then studied their tastebuds. The obese mice had 25% FEWER taste buds than lean mice. The inflammation that comes along with fat gain reduces the number of tastebuds on your tongue. Human tastebuds die and regenerate quickly; their lifespan is 10 days. So this is reversible with fat loss. But if you keep gaining fat, you'll regenerate fewer and fewer tastebuds.
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This may be why overweight people reach for increasingly salty, fatty, and sugary foods. A lean person may find a banana sweet and a donut cloying, but an obese person wouldn't taste the natural sweetness of fruit and it wouldn't be satisfying. For the not-obese person who enjoys one too many cheat meals, this could become a slippery slope. The fatter you get, the more sweetness you need to satisfy your sweet tooth and the harder it'll be to enjoy healthy foods. But as you lose body fat, you'll grow more tastebuds and be more sensitive to healthy flavors. Biologists believe the sweet tooth exists not to make you crave candy, but to make you enjoy things like fruit. If you didn't have a "receptor" for fruits, you wouldn't eat them and would miss out on those nutrients. Today the sweet tooth has been hijacked by refined sugars.
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This could be another downside of cheats. The more you have, the less satisfaction you get out of healthy foods. You may not lose 25% of your tastebuds, but you could reduce them a little, then a little more as you gain fat. Healthy foods will begin to taste worse, making losing extra fat even more miserable.
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Researchers took mice and got them fat, then studied their tastebuds. The obese mice had 25% FEWER taste buds than lean mice. The inflammation that comes along with fat gain reduces the number of tastebuds on your tongue. Human tastebuds die and regenerate quickly; their lifespan is 10 days. So this is reversible with fat loss. But if you keep gaining fat, you'll regenerate fewer and fewer tastebuds.
-
This may be why overweight people reach for increasingly salty, fatty, and sugary foods. A lean person may find a banana sweet and a donut cloying, but an obese person wouldn't taste the natural sweetness of fruit and it wouldn't be satisfying. For the not-obese person who enjoys one too many cheat meals, this could become a slippery slope. The fatter you get, the more sweetness you need to satisfy your sweet tooth and the harder it'll be to enjoy healthy foods. But as you lose body fat, you'll grow more tastebuds and be more sensitive to healthy flavors. Biologists believe the sweet tooth exists not to make you crave candy, but to make you enjoy things like fruit. If you didn't have a "receptor" for fruits, you wouldn't eat them and would miss out on those nutrients. Today the sweet tooth has been hijacked by refined sugars.
-
This could be another downside of cheats. The more you have, the less satisfaction you get out of healthy foods. You may not lose 25% of your tastebuds, but you could reduce them a little, then a little more as you gain fat. Healthy foods will begin to taste worse, making losing extra fat even more miserable.
