Study reveals weight loss jabs act upon the brain to change the way food tastes – and names which one is most likely to make your food taste saltier or sweeter
Weight loss jabs can make your food taste more salty or sweeter, new research shows.
A study of 411 people on appetite-suppressing injections Wegovy, Mounjaro or Ozempic found around one in five reported being more sensitive to sugar and salt.
Study lead Prof Othmar Moser, of University of Bayreuth in Germany, said: “These drugs act not only in the gut and brain areas that control hunger but also on taste bud cells and brain regions that process taste and reward. This means they can subtly change how strong flavours, like sweetness or saltiness, are perceived. This in turn may affect appetite.”
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The study showed 21.3% of people on the jabs felt their food tasted sweeter, and 22.6% felt it tasted saltier.Their perception of bitterness and sourness did not change.
Wegovy was most likely to make food taste saltier with 26.7% of participants on these injections reporting that it did. This compared with 16.2% in the Ozempic group and 15.2% in the Mounjaro group.
Prof Moser added: “Shifts in taste may affect how satisfying or appealing food feels in the moment, which influences appetite control.
“However weight loss depends on many other factors like metabolism, long-term eating patterns and activity. So changes to taste alone may not be enough to directly drive body weight reduction.”
Increases in sweetness were reported at similar frequencies in all groups; at 19.4% for Wegovy, 21.6% for Ozempic and 21.7% for Mounjaro 21.7%.
The findings were presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Vienna and published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.
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Weight loss drugs mimic the glucagon-like peptide (GLP) 1 hormone, which makes people feel full, and were initially developed to treat diabetes. In Its branded forms Wegovy and Mounjaro i is now approved on the NHS solely for weight loss in obese patients. However lack of NHS capacity means most people in the UK on the injections are paying for them privately.
It comes as separate research suggested weight loss jabs could be effective on children as young as six who are obese or have type 2 diabetes. However, stomach problems were “significantly more common” among youngsters taking the drugs.
Currently weight loss injections are only prescribed on the NHS for adults.
Experts in the US carried out a review and meta-analysis of 18 trials involving the drugs which mimic the GLP-1 hormone in 1,402 youngsters aged six to 17.
Findings published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics showed the drugs “significantly improved” the likes of glycaemic control and weight in obese children and those with type 2 diabetes. However side effects including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and constipation recorded for some taking the drugs.