Smoking Dulls sense of Taste

US Researches have observed that cigarette smoking affects a person’s sense of taste especially with sweet tasting foods.

A study conducted by the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia observed 27 current smokers, 18 of them also had family history of alcoholism and 22 women who never smoked and 9 of them had a family history of alcoholism. They all were tested for their sensitivity to sweetness.

“Cigarette smoking and having a family history of alcoholism had different effects on sweet-taste perception and food cravings,” study co-author Julie A. Mennella, a senior researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, said in a prepared statement.

“Women who smoked cigarettes were less sensitive to sweet taste than women who never smoked. This means that women who smoke required higher concentrations of a sweet solution in order to detect sweet taste; we also found that the more years a woman has smoked cigarettes, the less sensitive she will be to sweet taste,” Mennella said.

“The study suggests that cigarette smoking dulls sweet-taste detection and is associated with increased food cravings, especially for starchy carbohydrates and foods high in fat,” co-author M. Yanina Pepino, a researcher at Monell, said in a prepared statement.

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