The problem of overeating remains in the spotlight for health scientists, who recently proposed that obese people could be eating much more than their slender counterparts possibly because the sugar-addicted don’t enjoy food as much. Their discovery is based on a recent research showing that sugar consumptions dulls the taste buds, so sweets are becoming less enjoyable.

Sugar kills taste buds and it leads to obesity

Eating too much sugar dulls the taste for sweets, scientists warn.

A recent research on fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) arrived to this unusual discovery. The work was published in Cell Reports.

Studies showed that the diet with a high sugar level causes a chain reaction in molecules which prevents their ability to differentiate sweet taste and leads to binge eating and obesity.

In addition, a diet with high levels of sugar caused changes in the taste.

If the reaction of people to sugar is similar, scientists can understand how it influences eating habits and leads to being overweight. If these are molecular changes, it means that to a certain degree gluttony is beyond control.

The principal investigator Monica Dus, U-M associate professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology pointed out that even though researchers can’t define fruit flies’ “pleasure” of food, insects eat more because food contains much sugar.

Christina May, a co-author of the study and a doctoral student in Dus’ lab, agrees that both flies and people have other unexpected likenesses. They adore sweet and fatty foods, and enjoying such foods produce dopamine. Flies’ brain cells use the same proteins and molecules as humans.

Fat flies

The investigators arrived to their findings by the way of experiment.

Primarily, researchers have been feeding flies that were genetically fat but never were subjected to the high-sugar diet, and their taste didn’t change.

Then they checked another variety of genetically modified flies, which were unable to store fat. If the thin flies were fed a lot of sugar, they would lose the taste for sweets.

This demonstrated that it wasn’t being fat that caused the change in taste, but the sugar in the food.

Then some flies were fed artificially sweetened food, while others were getting sugar. Only the flies that were getting sugary food lost the taste.

The study showed that the change in taste is not caused by fat, but by sugar in food.

OGT controls sugar levels

The researchers found a certain sugar sensor which is placed in the taste buds of Drosophila. It is called the molecule O-GlcNAc transferase and controls the level of sugar in cells.

In people who suffer from diabetes and heart disease, OGT also has been detected.

The scientists worked on the cells of the flies’ taste so that Drosophila continued to taste sweet despite the high sugar content in their diet. As a result, the flies did not eat much though the level of sweet food in their ration was rather high.

Dus stated that taste changes of fruit flies influenced on their excessive consumption and gain of weight. The principal investigator decided to check whether the same taste changes happened if other animals including human beings began to eat high sugar products. She wanted to know whether it led to overeating.

Anoumid Vaziri, a doctoral student in Dus’ lab and a study co-author, declared that the results of the study confirmed the dependence of overconsumption and fatness on neural mechanisms and indicated the necessity to study the processes at the molecular level that affected the functioning of neural activity.

The way to preserve taste

How will the results of the study affect people who are addicted to sugar, obese or who are simply dieting? It is possible that a medicine or any medical procedures will be invented that will contribute to the correction of taste sensations, and will preserve the perception of sweet taste, which will lead to weight loss and, consequently, accompanying illnesses. But this will take years.

The results of the study show that reducing the amount of sugar in the daily ration is necessary to reduce the amount of food. Dus specifies that it is necessary to decrease the consumption of processed foods, because they contain a lot of sugar, and people are unaware of it.

Scientists claim that you are not threatened by a change in taste and overeating if you reduce your daily sugar intake. May added with importance that everyone working on this project did just that.

Dus reports that investigation will continue and their goal will be to study the effect of sugar on brain reward mechanisms. This will help to understand what provokes gluttony and how the consumption of sugar leads to changes in the brain at the molecular level.

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