Our fact about our body for today is:
By age sixty, most people have lost half of their taste buds.
As you may assume, the organ of taste is called the “taste bud, of which the average person has 10,000. Each taste bud is made up of somewhere between 50 and 150 receptors, which live for only about one to two weeks and then are replaced. Each receptor in a taste bud has its own response to one of the five basic tastes, which are, sweet, sour, bitter, salty and Umami – salts of certain acids (for example monosodium glutamate or MSG). A single taste bud has taste cells which represent four taste sensations. The salty/sweet taste buds are located near the front of your tongue; the sour taste buds line the sides of your tongue; and the bitter taste buds are found at the very back of your tongue.
Studies have revealed that your nose or sense of smell has as much to do with the taste of food as the taste buds – if you can’t smell it, you can’t taste it. Just try eating something that you really like when you are pinching your nose so you can’t smell it. You will find that the taste you expect is not there.
The average person can discriminate between 4,000 to 10,000 different odor molecules. And we know it seems that age takes a much greater toll on smell than on taste. As a person ages, some of the taste buds are lost. Scientists have found that the sense of smell begins to decrease after age 60 , but that women at all ages generally have a much better sense of smell than men of the same age.
As I began researching taste buds, I was under the impression that taste buds had something to do with appetite. A few years ago I had a disease called “scleritis of the eye” which is a form of arthritis. I had to be quite heavily medicated for the inflammation and the pain, and during this time, I lost my appetite. Nothing tasted good. I tried to eat those foods that I dearly loved, but they tasted like cardboard – so I finally decided that I might as well eat nothing but fruits, vegetable, lean meats and all those healthy diet foods that everyone should be eating. Not surprising, I experienced a good deal of weight reduction. However, when I was able to quit taking the medication and the taste came back to foods, I began eating my normal “not so healthy” diet and put the weight right back on. One thing that I noticed was that there were certain foods that I no longer could taste – lemons – I could not detect the sourness of them, and one of my favorite foods, Green Chili from Hatch, New Mexico, I could no longer taste or smell the chili – I almost cried. My sense of smell was also not nearly as good as it used to be, so I attributed my ability to control my appetite to the fact that I could neither smell or taste some foods. However, I learned that actually taste buds have very little, if anything to do with appetite.
Sarah C. Sitton and Autumn F. Sullivan of St. Edward’s University conducted research and wrote an article in the American Journal of Psychological Research (http://www.mcneese.edu/ajpr/vol3/ajpr09_07.pdf) in which they cited that there was a significant negative correlation between the number of taste buds and BMI (the measure of a person’s body mass). That is, higher numbers of taste buds were associated with lower body mass. While the relation between taste buds and Binge Eating Scale scores was barely noticeable and there was no correlation between being able to smell the aromas or with food preferences. What this tells me is that taste buds have nothing to do with how much you eat. They only concern themselves with how the food, beverage or medicine tastes.
So, my theory about disappearing taste buds and declining appetite just went out the window – except —– when I couldn’t taste the food, I didn’t want to eat nearly as much as usual. I wanted to tell you that if you are 60 or older or approaching the age of 60 you could count on your appetite decreasing because your taste buds are decreasing – but I guess that isn’t the case. Darn!! Back to healthy eating, listening to your body and quit eating when you are satisfied. Sorry!
Think Thin Thoughts.
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Tags: appetite, tongue, satisfied, healthy diet, Hatch Green Chili, taste buds, receptors, sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami, monosodium glutamate, MSG, smell, nose, odor molecules, scleritis, inflammation, pain, cardboard, BMI, disappearing taste buds, listening to your body, Hatch, NM
