Blame Your Taste Buds for Liking Fat: Receptor for Tasting Fat Identified in Humans
Date: 18.1.2012
Why do we like fatty foods so much? We can blame our taste buds. Our tongues apparently recognize and have an affinity for fat, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They have found that variations in a gene can make people more or less sensitive to the taste of fat.
The study is the first to identify a human receptor that can taste fat and suggests that some people may be more sensitive to the presence of fat in foods. The study is available online in the Journal of Lipid Research. Investigators found that people with a particular variant of the CD36 gene are far more sensitive to the presence of fat than others.
