Stomach’s Sweet Tooth
Turns out taste is not just for the tongue
People deceive their taste buds every day — a dash of Sweet’N Low in the coffee, perhaps, a diet soda or a stick of sugarless gum. These little white lies seem to cover up harmless, even healthy choices. After all, fooling the mouth with artificial sweeteners provides a fix without the calories or the cavities. But these sweeteners aren’t just tricking the taste buds on the tongue.
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Taste, scientists are discovering, is a whole-body sensation. There are taste cells in the stomach, intestine and, evidence suggests, the pancreas, colon and esophagus. These sensory cells are part of an ancient battalion tasked with guiding food choices since long before nutrition labels, Rachael Ray or even agriculture existed. While taste cells in the mouth make snap judgments about what should be let inside, new work suggests that gut taste cells serve as specialized ground forces, charged with preparing the digestive system for the aftermath of the tongue’s decisions.