Taste buds may play role in fostering obesity in offspring

Date:
September 11, 2020
Source:
Cornell University
Summary:
Food scientists show in animal studies that a mother's high-fat diet
may lead to more sweet-taste receptors and a greater attraction
to unhealthy food in their offspring - resulting in poor feeding
behavior, obesity in adulthood.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Cornell food scientists show in animal studies that a mother's high-fat
diet may lead to more sweet-taste receptors and a greater attraction to unhealthy food in their offspring -- resulting in poor feeding behavior, obesity in adulthood.


==========================================================================
The researchers' findings were published July 31 in Scientific Reports.

Maternal exposure to a high-fat diet during the perinatal period -- before
the animal gets pregnant -- appears to induce physical, detectable changes
in the taste buds for offspring, said senior author Robin Dando, associate professor of food science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

"We see this is something actually happening in the taste buds
themselves," Dando said. "Adult progeny, fed such a diet, have more
sweet-taste receptors inside their taste buds than in the control group,
whose mothers ate a steady, healthy diet." Five weeks before mating,
female mice were fed high-caloric, high-fat meals; other mice were also
fed the high-fat diet from their pregnancy through lactation.

The progeny, weaned after the lactation period, ate healthy, high-quality laboratory chow. When the offspring became adults, the mice received
their first taste of the high-fat diet.

"Up until then, the animals showed no difference between themselves and
the control group," Dando said. "But as soon as the offspring of the moms
who consumed the unhealthy diet had access to it, they loved it and they
over- consumed it." The offspring only encountered a high-fat diet by
way of the maternal environment.

"If a mother has an unhealthy diet where she consumes a lot of calories
through high-fat and sugary products," Dando said, "the offspring are
going to have a predisposition for liking the unhealthy diet. The origin
of this is not only the changes the brain, but there are other physical
changes happening within the taste buds." As Dando stressed, these
results are in mice, but obesity in humans combined with an environmental component, the heritability is between 40% to 70%.

"Obesity in the offspring is strongly predicted by the metabolic state
of the parents," he said.

While the specific mechanism remains unclear, Dando said, the results
introduce the concept of "taste" to the list of metabolic alterations
arising from fetal programming.

"Our research adds to the evidence that the taste bud plays a role in the etiology of obesity," he said. "From a public health standpoint, improving
our knowledge of prenatal and early postnatal factors that program obesity
in offspring may provide insight into therapeutic targets to combat the
obesity epidemic -- a disease easier to prevent than to cure."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Cornell_University. Original written
by Blaine Friedlander. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ezen Choo, Lauren Wong, Patricia Chau, Jennifer Bushnell, Robin
Dando.

Offspring of obese mice display enhanced intake and sensitivity
for palatable stimuli, with altered expression of taste signaling
elements.

Scientific Reports, 2020; 10 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-68216-7 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200911110747.htm

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