Abstract
Many reports detail taste dysfunction in humans and animals with obesity. For example, mice consuming an obesogenic diet for a short period have fewer taste buds than their lean littermates. Further, rats with diet-induced obesity (DIO) show blunted electrophysiological responses to taste in the brainstem. Here, we studied the effects of high energy diet (HED)-induced peripheral taste damage in rats, and whether this deficiency could be reversed by returning to a regular chow diet. Separate groups of rats consumed a standard chow diet (Chow), a HED for 10 weeks followed by a return to chow (HED/chow), or a HED for 10 weeks followed by a restricted HED that was isocaloric with consumption by the HED/chow group (HED/isocal). Fungiform taste papilla (FP) and circumvallate taste bud abundance were quantified several months after HED groups switched diets. Results showed that both HED/chow and HED/isocal rats had significantly fewer FP and lower CV taste bud abundance than control rats fed only chow. Neutrophil infiltration into taste tissues was also quantified, but did not vary with treatment on this timeline. Finally, the number of cells undergoing programmed cell death, measured with caspase-3 staining, inversely correlated with taste bud counts, suggesting taste buds may be lost to apoptosis as a potential mechanism for the taste dysfunction observed in obesity. Collectively, these data show that DIO has lasting deleterious effects on the peripheral taste system, despite a change from a HED to a healthy diet, underscoring the idea that obesity rather than diet predicts damage to the taste system.
Highlights
From 1975 the prevalence of obesity has tripled across the world [1]
At the endpoint of the experiment, both groups of rats treated with high-energy diet (HED) were heavier than control chow-fed rats (Figure 1A, HED/chow p = 0.042; HED/isocal p = 0.002), with HED/isocal rats having more body fat (Figure 1B, p = 0.023)
HED/isocal rats had a higher percentage of of body fat compared to chow-only rats, with HED/chow rats having slightly
Summary
From 1975 the prevalence of obesity has tripled across the world [1] With this growing obesity epidemic, food intake is posited as the primary driver of obesity [2]. The habitual excess intake of fat and sugar leads to a chronic positive energy balance, which in turn causes weight gain [10,11,12,13]. In developed countries this problem is more acute, as more foods high in saturated fat and added sugar are more regularly consumed [14,15,16,17]. As our primary driver of food choice is taste [18,19,20,21], understanding how the taste system is affected with obesity may shed light on why obesity is so difficult to treat
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