Smoking reduces the ability of obese women to taste sugar and fat driving them to consume more calories, a new study finds.
It's not uncommon for people to crave high-fat, sugary foods once in a while. Researchers of a new study found that obese women smokers are less likely to have precise fatty and sugary tastes leading them to consume larger quantities of high-calorie foods.
Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis studied four groups of women ages 21 to 41. These groups were obese smokers, obese non-smokers, smokers of normal weight and non-smokers of normal weight. All participants were given several bowls of vanilla pudding to taste and then asked to rate them on the basis of sweetness and creaminess (a measurement for fatness).
"Compared with the other three groups, smokers who were obese perceived less creaminess and sweetness," M. Yanina Pepino, assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said in a news release. "They also derived less pleasure from tasting the puddings."
This led researchers to confirm that the ability to perceive fatty and sugary tastes is compromised in obese women smokers. This drives them to consume more calories, thus increasing the risk of severe obesity.
"Obese people often crave high-fat foods," she said. "Our findings suggest that having this intense craving but not perceiving fat and sweetness in food may lead these women to eat more. Since smoking and obesity are risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, the additional burden of craving more fats and sugars, while not fully tasting them, could be detrimental to health."
The study didn't determine why obese smokers were less likely to detect fat and sweetness. However, researchers did note that a combination of obesity and smoking acted like a "double-whammy" since non-obese smokers were able to perceive both tastes as effectively as non smokers.
A previous study found that smokers have an increased waist-to-hip ratio which leads to an apple body shape rather than a pear. This is considered to be a risk factor for heart disease and metabolic problems.
The current study was published in the April issue of the journal Obesity and funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
