Division of Nutritional Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States.
Carle Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States.
Chem Senses. 2024 Jan 1;49. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjae034.
Most patients report "taste" changes after undergoing metabolic surgeries. Yet, most studies that used validated sensory evaluation techniques, including ours, found no changes in perceived taste intensity from before to after surgery. However, we assessed participants with pure gustatory stimuli and after an overnight fast, which raises questions about whether patients' self-reported "taste" changes are due to conflating changes in retronasal smell/"flavor" with taste changes or whether they only manifest during the fed state. To investigate this, we conducted a cross-sectional study comparing sensory responses in women who underwent metabolic surgery 2 to 6 yr ago (n = 15) with 2 nonoperated control groups: one with a body mass index (BMI) equivalent (n = 15) and one with a healthy BMI (n = 15). Participants attended 2 sessions, one fed and one fasted. Using a sip-and-spit method, women tasted liquid samples containing gustatory and olfactory stimuli and puddings with varying fat content with and without nose clips. They used separate general labeled magnitude scales to rate their perceived intensity of taste, smell, flavor, and liking. Mixed ANOVAs indicated that the surgery and BMI equivalent groups rated retronasal smell intensity of coffee stronger than the healthy BMI group (P ≤ 0.015). However, there were no differences in taste/flavor intensity or liking ratings among groups. Additionally, feeding conditions did not significantly affect perceived intensity ratings. Our findings suggest that changes in the sensory-discriminatory component of taste or taste-odor interactions are not significant contributors to dietary modifications following metabolic surgery.
大多数接受代谢手术的患者报告术后“味觉”发生变化。然而，包括我们的研究在内，大多数使用经验证的感官评估技术的研究发现，手术后味觉强度感知没有变化。然而，我们使用纯味觉刺激物和隔夜禁食评估了参与者，这引发了一些问题，即患者自我报告的“味觉”变化是否是由于将鼻腔后嗅觉/“风味”变化与味觉变化混淆，还是仅在进食状态下表现出来。为了研究这个问题，我们进行了一项横断面研究，比较了 2 至 6 年前接受代谢手术的女性（n=15）与 2 个未手术对照组（n=15）的感官反应：一个与体重指数（BMI）相当，另一个与健康 BMI 相当。参与者参加了 2 次会议，一次是进食时，一次是禁食时。女性使用啜饮-吐出法品尝含有味觉和嗅觉刺激物的液体样本以及不同脂肪含量的布丁，同时使用鼻夹或不使用鼻夹。她们使用单独的一般标记量表来评估他们对味觉、嗅觉、风味和喜好的感知强度。混合方差分析表明，手术和 BMI 相当组对咖啡的鼻腔后嗅觉强度的评分高于健康 BMI 组（P≤0.015）。然而，各组在味觉/风味强度或喜好评分方面没有差异。此外，进食条件并没有显著影响感知强度评分。我们的研究结果表明，在代谢手术后饮食改变中，味觉的感官辨别成分或味觉-嗅觉相互作用的变化并不是重要的贡献因素。
