Oral Fat Sensitivity Is Associated with Social Support for Stress Coping in Young Adult Men

Oral fat sensitivity (OFS), the ability to taste fat, is associated with eating habits in humans, including daily fatty food consumption; namely, proper OFS is important for health. In addition, lifestyle factors, such as stress and sleep, may affect fat intake. However, correlations between OFS, stress management, and sleep are largely unknown. Thus, we investigated the associations of OFS with lifestyle factors regarding stress management and daytime sleepiness in healthy young adult men. We measured OFS, sensitivities for three prototypical tastes (sweet, salty, and sour), and BMI in 22 subjects (27.2 ± 6.0 years), who also completed a self-reported questionnaire on health, including lifestyle-related questions. The correlations of taste sensitivities with stress management and daytime sleepiness were analyzed. We thus found that the number of mentors for personal concerns (a question regarding stress management, social support) was positively associated with OFS (P = 0.041), but not the other taste sensitivities. In contrast, other lifestyle factors related to stress management (frequency of relaxation, frequency of eating when irritated or worried, and degree of satisfaction with one's sleep) and daytime sleepiness were not significantly associated with OFS, similar to that observed for other tested taste sensitivities. These results characterize the unique association of OFS with the degree of social support in healthy young men and provide novel insights into the nature of individual OFS differences. Thus, measuring the degree of social support may be helpful for the evaluation of OFS impairment, thereby contributing to the prevention of stress-induced overeating.