Untitled Document
 Eating
is a very important part of our lives. We cannot survive without eating. We
also often enjoy delicious food to feel better or socialize with others. You
can enjoy delicious food thanks to the taste buds on your tongue. They help you enjoy
different tastes. Then, do you know how many tastes your tongue can
detect?
For a long time, scientists thought that the human tongue could detect
only four basic tastes:
sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Then, a fifth taste
called “umami,” or savory, was discovered. Recently, American researchers have discovered
a sixth basic taste. Can you guess what it is?
A team of researchers from the school of medicine at Washington University
in the U.S. identified a previously-unrecognized sixth
taste - fat. They have located a chemical receptor in the
taste buds on the tongue
that recognizes fat molecules. The receptor is
called “CD36.” According to them, the sixth taste’s sensitivity varies between
individuals.
Their study showed that people with more of the receptor were better
at detecting the presence of fat in food. It found that those with
half as much CD36 were eight times less sensitive to the presence
of fat. The finding may help explain why some people eat
more fatty foods.
“People who enjoy fatty food often are less aware of the taste as
they eat. So they end up eating more and gaining weight,” explained
Professor Nada Abumrad, who led the study. “A high-fat diet would lead to less production of CD36, and that
could make a person less sensitive to fat and eat more fatty food.”
The research team hopes their discovery will be able to
help fight obesity. They hope to find
a way to increase people’s sensitivity
to fat in their food. Then, they will eat less fatty food. Fat is
one of the main causes of obesity.
Obesity is a serious problem in many countries. |
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