A new study published in the journal PLOS Biology supports past research that suggests the more weight you gain the less you are able to taste the food you eat.
The study, based on research with mice, suggests that obesity-driven inflammation actually reduced the number of their taste buds on their tongues.
A child enjoying the taste of ice cream (Smoooochie/Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic via Flickr)
There are 50 to 100 receptor cells in each taste bud.
They’re tasked with detecting the five primary tastes – salt, bitter, sour and umami.
These receptor cells are said to have a short lifespan, dying off in about 10 days.
As cells die they are replaced with new ones.
The researchers noted that a group of obese mice fed a high-fat diet, had about 25% fewer taste buds than mice in the lean group, fed a normal diet.
The study found, in the obese mice, that the rate of dying taste bud cells increased while regeneration of new cells slowed.
Does this agree with the facts in our actual life? How about the physique of chefs and food critics who have excellent sense of taste? Majority of them are not slim at all. Do skinny people hate spicy foods or oily noodle? Do fat persons love foods with strong taste? Some do, and some do not. Clearly, preference of taste depends on personality, not on figure. Those who are fond of high calorie foods or eat much tend to get obese, that’s all. We need critical thinking to interpret “science” of this kind. Hidden is a totally unproven assumption that number of taste bud cell determines the sensitivity to the taste. Those researchers might be smart, but they were obsessed with a primitive prejudice. They unfairly applied their scientific finding to this assumption and drew a ridiculous conclusion.
In addition, evolutionists make very similar error.