[Impact of Taste Sensitivity on Lifestyle-related Diseases]

Individual taste sensitivity affects one's eating habits, and could thus play a role in the development of lifestyle-related diseases, such as obesity, hypertension and dyslipidemia. However, only a handful of studies have been conducted to investigate these associations. Therefore, we performed taste sensitivity tests on approximately 250 patients with lifestyle-related diseases who were undergoing outpatient treatment at the Department of Internal Medicine, or received a health check-up in order to examine the associations of individual taste sensitivity with their eating habits and lifestyle-related diseases. Our findings showed that sensitivity to sweet or salt taste was significantly lower in patients with cardiovascular diseases, and sensitivity to umami taste was significantly lower in obese patients. These findings suggest that taste sensitivity disorders may be linked not only to eating habits and lifestyle-related diseases, but also to the onset of cardiovascular diseases. Many of the drugs used in the treatment of lifestyle-related diseases and cardiovascular diseases, including antihypertensive agents, statins, fibrates, and allopurinol, are known to form zinc chelates and thereby possibly cause drug-induced taste disorders. Focusing on individual taste sensitivity to improve or maintain intake levels may become a new target for drug development in the areas of lifestyle-related and cardiovascular diseases.