Scientists found sixth basic taste receptors in human tongue

Scientists found sixth basic taste receptors in human tongue

For a long time, the scientists believed that the human tongue can recognise four basic tastes only, sweet, sour, salt and bitter but a fifth taste receptor, umami of savoury, was discovered
and now, the studies have found that human tongue has a sixth basic taste too. Recent researches have claimed that ‘fat’ is the sixth basic taste a human tongue can recognise.

A team of scientists from the United States was conducting research on the taste buds in the tongue and finally came to know that a chemical receptor in the taste buds on the tongue can
recognises fat molecules. The scientists also found that the sensitivity of detecting ‘fat’ varies between individuals.

This discovery will surely help explaining the rate of fatty food consumption in different people because still the people have less awareness of the fatty taste as they eat. The scientists
also believe that the finding will also help combating obesity through increasing the awareness and sensitivity of the people towards their fatty food.

Apart from the tongue to detect the taste, our nose can detect the presence of fat in a food through smell. The team of scientists from the school of medicine at Washington University,
St Louis, has revealed that people with CD36 taste receptors can better detect the presence of fat in food.

Leader of the research, Professor Nada Abumrad said, “The ultimate goal is to understand how our perception of fat in food might influence what foods we eat and the qualities of fat that
we consume.”

He added, “We’ve found one potential reason for individual variability in how people sense fat. What we will need to determine in the future is whether our ability to detect fat in foods
influences our fat intake, which clearly would have an impact on obesity.”

The new study is published in the Journal of Lipid Research.

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Posted by Zeeshan Gohar on Jan 31 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry