Taste Buds Decline With Age; A Link With Diabetes

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Taste Buds Decline With Age; A Link With Diabetes


The number of taste buds on the tongue declines as people age, and this may be important because the fewer the taste buds, the higher the fasting plasma glucose (FPG) level, new research shows.


“We found that the number of taste buds on the tongue had a connection to our age and to how our body handles sugar,” Chee W. Chia, MD, of the National Institute of Aging (NIA), Baltimore, Maryland, told reporters at ICE/ENDO 2014. 


She suggested this, in turn, could at least partly explain the increased incidence of type 2 diabetes among older adults.


In 1955, 1% of the US population had type 2 diabetes, Dr. Chia told a press briefing here. Latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that in 2012, 9.3% of the US population had the disease. And among those over aged 65, a quarter — 11.2 million people — were living with type 2 diabetes, she noted.







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