Study: Tastants May Help You Lose Weight

Tastants, substances that can stimulate the sense of taste, can help you lose weight and win the battle of the bulge. This is according to new research presented here in San Francisco (CA, USA) at the 2008 Endocrine Society's 90th Annual Meeting.

Flavoring food with calorie-free seasonings and sweeteners, scientifically known as tastants, may result in people feeling full faster and reducing their calorie intake in th elong run. This is because tastants may stimulate your sense of fullness when you eat your food, said Dr. Alan Hirsch, from the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation (Chicago), who presented the results of his study at the Endocrine Society's 90^th National Meeting.

In his study, more than 2,400 people participated. They were either obese or overweight and were asked to use a variety of seasonings and calorie-free sweetener in their food during a six-month period of time. Participants used the seasonings an sweeteners as they liked. They did not know which seasoning were using. They only knew if it was salty or sweet.

Hidden salty tastants included parmesan, cheddar cheese, horseradish, onion, or ranch dressing flavors. Sweet tastants included a variety of banana, cocoa, strawberry, spearmint, raspberry, and malt flavors.

The study also included around 100 participants who did not use any tastants in their food. Researchers evaluated body mass index (BMI) before and after the six month period. Both group participants were allowed to diet if they were doing it before participating in the research study.

The study results presented here showed that in effect using tastans may help people reduce their body weight. In fact, the people who used tastants had an average weight loss of around 30 pounds while the control group (the one who did not used tastants) only lost an average of 2 pounds. BMI decreased an average of 5 units for the participants who used tastants while only o.3 for those participants who eat plain food (no tastants).

Hirsh believes that tastants make people feel full faster so they eat less at each eating time. Unfortunately, researcher did no manage to track food intake which may have been a nice addition to the experimental design of this study.

Also, as Hirsh said at the presentation, is possible that healthy food, usually with a bland flavor, are "taste-revitalized" with the seasoning additions so people may increase their intake because they taste better. Just imagine a plain tofu and one which has been seasoned with cheddar cheese. Which one will you eat?

Source:

Use of Tastants in Weight Reduction. Presentation [P3-226]. AR Hirsch, 2008 Endocrine Society's 90th Annual Meeting. June 15-18^th, San Francisco, CA (USA). Summary at http://www.abstracts2view.com/endo/view.php?nu=ENDO08L_P3-226