Diet Can Influence Your Taste Sensitivity And Preference: Study

Health News – Study on fruit flies found that what we eat influences our taste for what we might want to eat next. It also provides a better understanding of the neurophysiological plasticity of the taste system in flies.

In a new study, researchers at the University of California conducted a study on fruit flies to understand whether their diet can influence their taste sensitivity and preferences or not. In this experiment, they fed the adult fruit flies different diets, such as a sugar-reduced and protein-enriched diet, a sugar-enriched and protein-depleted diet, and a balanced diet. However, all three diets were similar in calorie content. The researchers also examined the flies daily for a week to study the modifications in their food preferences and taste sensitivity.

According to the findings, the diet of the flies affected their dopamine and insulin signaling in their brain which similarly impacted their peripheral sensory response, followed by influencing what they ate next. The researchers found that those flies who returned to a balanced diet after having unbalanced ones, their taste sensitivity also returned to baseline levels. It implies that imbalances in diet can help people in changing their taste preferences so that they prefer beneficial foods and achieve metabolic homeostasis again.

“For a diet with excess protein at the expense of carbohydrates, the flies’ taste sensitivity changed so that they mounted a compensatory behavioral response in the short term to eat more carbohydrates and less protein in order to regain a balanced diet,” said Anupama Dahanukar, lead researcher of the study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

“Changes in gene expression appear to be involved. We see these changes in flies based on dietary exposure for just a day or two,” associate researcher Anindya Ganguly later mentioned.

To Know More You May Refer To:

Ganguly, Anindya & Dey, Manali & Scott, Christi & Duong, Vi-Khoi & Dahanukar, Anupama. (2021). Dietary Macronutrient Imbalances Lead to Compensatory Changes in Peripheral Taste via Independent Signaling Pathways. The Journal of Neuroscience. 41. JN-RM. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2154-20.2021.