High fat diets change taste buds, leading to overeating: research.

A woman tastes fat with her nose plugged in a Deakin University sensory lab. (Image: supplied by Deakin University.)

By Imogen Brennan for ABC News.

Eating a diet that is too high in fat may lead you to unintentionally reset your taste buds and set yourself up for overeating, say researchers at Deakin University.

Now researchers say they have found that it is possible to change a person’s threshold for tasting fat.

Professor Russell Keast from Deakin University’s Centre of Advanced Sensory Science said when a person had a high fat diet and was overweight, they would be less sensitive to the taste of fat.

In the latest study published in the international journal Obesity, 53 overweight and obese people were put on a weight-loss diet for six weeks.

Some were given a low-fat diet, where less than 25 per cent of their total calories came from fat.

The others were put on a portion-controlled diet, where their calories were reduced, but 33 per cent of that intake came from fat.

Both groups of participants lost about the same amount of weight during the six weeks.

But only the people on the low-fat diet increased their sensitivity to fat, as well as the ability to identify fat in foods.

“It’s some form of re-tuning or adaptation of the senses,” Professor Keast said.

“When we get to a level where we can actually identify the taste of fat, it’s actually very unpleasant.”

People need to taste fat 'to feel full'.

Professor Keast said what researchers were measuring in the mouth was also being reflected throughout the gut.

"If you require high concentrations to be able to identify fat in the oral cavity, the same thing is happening in your gut," he said.

If the nutrient is "invisible" to the taste buds and gut, it is difficult to feel satisfied and full after food.

"And this is a big part of stopping eating," Professor Keast said.

"One of the problems with dieting is the long-term sustainability.

"What we would be looking for in terms of strategies, is to increase the sensitivity with a low-fat diet, and then maintain high levels of activation of those fat receptors."

Harvesting tastebuds from twins.

The Deakin University team is now studying whether genetics play a role in the ability to taste fat, or whether food intake is the only cause.

Deakin researcher Andrew Costanzo said for that part of the study they are studying sets of twins.

"We're putting one twin on a low-fat diet and the other twin on a high-fat diet to see whether or not fat taste is genetic, or there's some sort of environmental component to it which we can alter," Mr Costanzo said.

Part of the study involves harvesting tastebuds from the tongues of the participants.

They use micro-scissors to snip about eight taste buds from each of the participants' tongues.

"This is a completely painless procedure, it sounds much scarier than it is, but it doesn't have any effect on the tongue long term or short term," Mr Costanzo said.

"What we want to do is look at the physiology of the taste buds — how that changes from before to after the diet, and looking at exactly what part of the taste bud is involved in tasting fat."

The genetic research and the findings from the taste bud harvesting should be finished by the end of the year.

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