A semaglutide a component present in medicines for the treatment of diabetes and obesity — such as Ozempic It is Wegovy — can improve taste sensitivity, alter genetic expression on the tongue responsible for taste, and alter the brain's response to sweet flavors. This is what a study presented on Saturday (1st) at ENDO 2024, the annual meeting of Edocrine Society in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States.
According to Mojca Jensterle Sever, Ph.D. at the University Medical Center in Ljubljana, Slovenia, obesity can make people perceive flavors less “intensely,” which increases the desire for sweet, high-calorie foods.
Given this, Sever and his fellow researchers developed a study to understand the impact of semaglutide on taste perception. To do this, they randomly assigned a sample of 30 women with an average BMI (body mass index) of 36.4 to receive 1 mg of the drug or placebo.
“Our findings are based on preliminary animal studies that show that central administration of GLP-1 receptor drugs [classe em que a semaglutida pertence] affects the aversion to sweet taste”, says Sever, in press release.
How was the study carried out?
Over 16 weeks, researchers measured participants' taste sensitivity using strips that contained different concentrations of four flavors. Using MRI, they measured brain responses to each sweet solution dripped onto the tongue before and after the women ate a standard meal.
Additionally, the scientists administered a tongue biopsy to assess the participants' mRNA (messenger RNA) expression.
Those who received semaglutide showed changes in taste perception, taste bud gene expression and brain activity in response to sweet stimuli.
The EYA, PRMT8, CRLF1 and CYP1B1 genes, which exhibited differential mRNA expression in all analysis tests, are linked to our taste pathways, neural plasticity [mudança adaptativa na estrutura e nas funções do sistema nervoso diante de interações com o ambiente externo] and the renewal of taste buds on the tongue.
“The general public will be interested in learning about the potential new effects of this popular therapeutic class, widely used in the treatment of diabetes and obesity,” says Sever. “Doctors will likely correlate the findings with reports from their patients of changes in desire for certain foods that go beyond broad changes in appetite and satiety that help them lose weight.”
Despite the results, the researcher states that the study has limitations. “This proof-of-concept study only evaluated a specific taste in a research setting, which may not reflect everyday experience. Taste perception can vary significantly from person to person, limiting the generalizability of our results. Furthermore, mRNA sequencing has inherent limitations and does not directly represent changes in protein levels or activity.”
Jensterle Sever concluded that future studies will clarify whether the effectiveness of semaglutide in the treatment of obesity is also related to changes in taste.
Source: CNN Brasil
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