Although there are five main flavor categories — sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umamiTrusted Source — not everyone will taste foodsTrusted Source the same way.
Some people may be more sensitive to certain flavors than others. How a person smellsTrusted Source food also affects how it tastes to them. Additionally, certain factors, such as smokingTrusted Source, agingTrusted Source, certain medicationsTrusted Source, and obesity, may cause a person’s sense of taste to change over time. Past research has linked obesity to fewerTrusted Source taste buds on the tongue, leaving people with a weakened sense of tasteTrusted Source. Now, researchers from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia have found the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 agonist) semaglutideTrusted Source — the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic — helps improve taste sensitivity in women with obesity. Scientists report participants who took semaglutide experienced a modification in gene expression in the tongue that’s responsible for taste perception and a change to the brain’s response to sweet tastes.
The findings were presented on June 1 at ENDO 2024, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Boston, MA. The research has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.First presenting author Mojca Jensterle Sever, PhD of the Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana and the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia told Medical News Today: “Alterations in metabolic healthTrusted Source can significantly affect taste perception, “Obese individuals might perceive sweet tastes as less intense and may need more sweet-tasting agents to satisfy their reward-producing need for sweet. Reciprocally, populations that are prone to obesity have been shown to have an inherently elevated desire for sweet diets. The mechanisms behind these alterations are not well elucidated.” Obesity, taste sensitivity, and GLP-1 drugs For this study, researchers recruited 30 women with an average BMI of 36.4 who received semaglutide or a placebo for 16 weeks. “The eligibility criteria in our study aimed to control for as many covariates as possible that, alongside obesity, could affect taste perception, including sexTrusted Source, aging, diabetesTrusted Source, other serious chronic diseases, (and) smoking.
