Short-term taste failure or abnormality is caused by external conditions (such as drugs and food) and can be recovered by itself;
Taste: an "alarm" signal of disease
Sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, salty, constitute a variety of different tastes. Interestingly, people's taste perception varies greatly. 1932, American scientist Dr. Arthur Falcone and his assistant Noel prepared an organic compound called phenylthiourea in the experiment. Noel can't stand the bitter taste of this compound, but Fox is indifferent. The two men argued endlessly about it. It turns out that their tastes for bitterness are completely different.
People's taste will also be disturbed and deceived by external influences. For example, eating the same can of pork on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is more delicious than eating it at the seaside in Qingdao, because the taste is most sensitive under low pressure. In the tropical forests of western Africa and Hainan Island in China, there is a plant called "mysterious fruit". Just taste a little of this pulp, and within 4 hours, no matter whether you eat sour or bitter, your mouth will always be sweet. However, another plant, Gymnema sylvestre, will not feel sweet at all even if it eats honey within 24 hours after tasting its leaves.
With people's attention and research on taste, many amazing research results have been obtained. Among patients with diabetes, thyroid tumor and glaucoma, taste blindness is many times higher than that of normal people. Therefore, scientists believe that taste disorder may be a "warning" of suffering from a certain disease.
Recently, Du Huowo, director of the oncology department of Northwestern University, pointed out after the experiment that by dropping a few drops of diluent of taste stimuli on the patient's tongue, it is possible to screen whether the patient has early cancer according to his reaction to taste within a few minutes. Cancer research experts in many countries have found that the taste of a considerable number of patients with early cancer will be weakened. About14 of patients with advanced cancer lose weight suddenly, which is related to abnormal taste, which will lead to anorexia. So anorexia caused by the disappearance of taste is probably one of the signs of illness.
However, old people and young people have different tastes. Young people think of delicious things, while old people think of bitterness and acid. This is because people's taste buds are sweet and salty and contract first, while those who feel bitter and sour live much longer. So the elderly should not doubt that they have cancer when their mouths are bitter and sour.
Beware of fast food syndrome
In recent years, fast food, such as hamburgers, sandwiches, instant noodles and so on. , has occupied a large number of markets and is welcomed by people because of its convenience. What's more, some people eat instant noodles or go to fast food restaurants every day for convenience and time saving. After a long time, a disease called "fast food syndrome" was born, and its symptom is abnormal taste.
Usually, there are several reasons for abnormal taste: the side effects caused by long-term use of drugs for treating rheumatism; Visceral diseases such as kidney or liver; Physiological taste loss caused by old age; Injury of taste nerve caused by otitis media and other operations. Abnormal taste caused by diet first appeared in Japan. In recent years, with the popularity of fast food, there are more and more patients in China. The symptoms of this abnormal taste are: I don't know the original taste of the food I eat, everything feels sweet, I feel bitter in my mouth and burning in my tongue when I don't eat anything. If you know the diet of these patients, almost all of them are partial eclipse or eat too many fast food explanations or instant noodles to save time. The abnormal taste caused by diet does not show up quickly, but slowly appears in my ignorance, so people generally don't pay much attention to it. When you realize it, you still disagree. You often miss the good opportunity of early treatment and leave a lifelong disability.
At present, there are two ways to check whether the taste is normal. First, check with an electronic taste tester. The principle is to put the stylus of the electric taste meter on different parts of the tongue, stimulate the tongue with current, test the chorda tympani nerve area and taste buds that dominate the front of the tongue, and test whether the glossopharyngeal nerve area that dominates the center of the tongue root is normal. It is normal if electric current stimulation produces a metallic smell (similar to licking old nails). Generally, this kind of inspection is easier to pass. Then, conduct a second inspection. Put a 5 mm diameter filter paper with four flavors of acid, sweet, bitter and salty on the left and right sides of the tip of the tongue, then put a 5 mm diameter filter paper with four flavors of acid, sweet, bitter and salty on the left and right sides of the tip of the tongue according to your own feelings, and then tick the columns with four flavors of acid, sweet, bitter and salty on the table according to your own feelings. If you can't confirm it once, strengthen the concentration test. The concentration of the solution is divided into five grades from weak to strong, indicating taste sensitivity, normal, normal critical value, mild taste abnormality and moderate taste abnormality respectively. If you can't confirm it within these five grades, the taste is highly abnormal. For example, it is difficult for the college students in Anonymous to distinguish between sour taste and bitter taste, which is related to her stressful life as a tutor after studying. I have to eat hamburgers and potato chips because I don't have time to eat before each class. Drinking coffee to satisfy hunger for a long time will lead to abnormal taste. Fortunately, she had no symptoms for a long time. After correcting her diet in time, her sense of taste recovered.
So, why does excessive intake of fast food lead to abnormal taste? This is because eating fast food generally has the problem of insufficient zinc intake. It turns out that the taste buds on our tongue can feel the taste of food with the help of a zinc-containing saliva protein called taste. Taste hormone is also a nutritional factor for epithelial cells of oral new membrane. When zinc is deficient, the structure and metabolism of oral mucosal epithelial cells are abnormal, which leads to epithelial hyperplasia and poor keratinization and easy to fall off. It causes the pores of taste buds to be covered and blocked, which leads to insensitive taste and further affects appetite. In addition, zinc deficiency will also affect the activities of many zinc-containing enzymes related to nucleic acid and protein metabolism, and adversely affect the structure and function of taste buds, thus reducing taste sensitivity. By the way, in the hot season, a large amount of zinc (up to 1 mg/L) is excreted with sweat, and the phenomenon of loss of appetite will become more and more serious. This is also the reason why people generally lose their appetite in summer.
Usually the daily zinc intake of adults is 15 mg. Eat a balanced diet on time, so you don't have to worry about zinc deficiency. But fast food contains a variety of food additives, such as sausages, cheese, canned food, sauce, ice cream, refreshing drinks and other foods that can prevent oxidation. Food additives to improve shelf life, such as sodium polymetaphosphate and methylcellulose in solid gravy and condiments. When these food additives are absorbed into human body by duodenum, they will cause the loss of zinc in the body, thus causing zinc deficiency in the body and abnormal taste.
In short, we should know that fast food is only an emergency measure to fill our stomachs when we are nervous at work and have no time to eat. It is harmful to our health to form the habit of eating every day. Because eating fast food often causes abnormal taste, it is also difficult for the human body to absorb vitamins and minerals. If vitamin B 1 is insufficient, saliva secretion will be blocked. Furthermore, the tongue is the front end of the digestive organ and an important organ for sensing body abnormalities. Once the tongue fails, it is impossible to predict the abnormality of the body as early as possible.
Abnormal taste, early detection and early treatment is the key. If the symptoms are mild, eat more foods containing more zinc or take medicine for treatment. Foods rich in zinc include oysters, small fish, seaweed, sesame, buckwheat, egg yolk, green tea, animal liver, mushrooms, lobster sauce and soybeans. However, if left unchecked, half of the patients will never recover after one year. Therefore, for your health, try to eat less fast food. (Author: Wu Zailai)
The elderly should beware of idiopathic low taste.
Kawano
After retirement, Uncle Li did nothing and was bored. Besides taking care of the bonsai plants in the yard, he just smokes with his head stuffy. Gradually, he felt that eating was tasteless, his appetite was greatly reduced, and he lost weight.
One day, the street "activity center for the elderly" held a health care lecture, which happened to talk about how to prevent and treat the elderly's idiopathic low taste, and let Uncle Li understand that zinc supplementation and smoking cessation can help improve the low taste. Since then, he has given up smoking habits for many years and added foods rich in zinc to his diet. Strangely, he gradually felt that eating was delicious and his appetite increased greatly.
Modern medicine believes that the old people's idiopathic poor taste is related to the insufficient zinc content in the body. Foreign scholars made experiments on 33 old people and 365,438+0 young people, and asked them to taste bitter, spicy, sour, sweet and salty foods. However, the taste errors of the old people are more than those of the young people, and the less zinc in the old people's bodies, the worse their taste. Therefore, in their daily diet, the elderly should not only pay attention to the cooking methods suitable for their own tastes, but also eat more coarse grains, beans, animal liver, lean meat, egg yolk, fish, clams, mussels, oysters, apples and so on. Those with severe poor taste can take zinc gluconate, zinc glycyrrhizinate or zinc sulfate under the guidance of a doctor.
People's appetite is closely related to smell and taste. When the smell and taste of food stimulate the olfactory cells on the nasal mucosa and the taste buds on the tongue, these olfactory and taste receptors activate the appetite center through nerve transmission after being stimulated, thus causing appetite. However, when people enter old age, the functions of smell and taste gradually decline. If they smoke frequently again, the stimulation of smoke will inhibit their taste and smell, and even affect their appetite. In addition, when smoking, the toxic components in smoke will also inhibit the secretion of digestive glands, so that saliva in the mouth will be reduced, and the pollution of smoke to the mouth will aggravate the taste disorder.
Sweet Shen Hongfei (September 5, 65438 +05:47)
A person is most likely to notice the moment when he is approaching old age. It may not be a routine physical examination, nor is it that he forgets the appointment time again and again, but that he suddenly can't think of sweets on a certain night in winter.
The doctor told me that a person who doesn't particularly like sweet food, or even a person who hates sweet food, moved "sweetheart" on a cold night, which is probably a symptom of seasonal depression (SAD). This disease mostly occurs in middle-aged people, especially in winter. Due to insufficient sunshine in winter, the activity of monoamine oxidase (serotonin), which transmits signals between nerve cells in the brain, decreases, which has a series of negative effects on mood and appetite. Severe cases can also lead to bulimia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder and social phobia. Eating more sweets and sunbathing regularly are helpful to accelerate the synthesis and decomposition of monoamine oxidase in the brain, which is an effective means of anti-depression. The doctor also suggested that if it is cloudy for a long time, you might as well turn on all the lights at home, or go to public places such as department stores to treat yourself in a bright environment.
Some of my friends of the same age have developed this symptom one after another. I ruled out the hint of Sleepless in Seattle and confirmed that it had nothing to do with diabetes. Then, I think it's time to turn on all the lights in the room and add a second cube of sugar to the coffee cup according to the doctor's advice. Think about why I used to be happy because I ate sugar, but now I eat sugar because I am unhappy.
Middle age is afternoon tea, and afternoon tea in Dong Qiao is English, so adding sugar is inevitable.
Sweetness is the baby's first taste memory, and candy also brings early temptations and taboos. The first time I heard that salt came from sea water, I immediately imagined a large beach as sugar. The affinity of human sugar is based on the following wonderful biochemical reactions: the taste molecules of food penetrate into taste buds, and the micro-cilia of taste cells, stimulated by taste molecules, transmit taste information to the lower part of the brain gyrus behind the brain center in the form of current pulses, and finally produce taste. However, only when taste molecules reach a certain concentration can taste reactions be formed in the brain. Among the five flavors, bitter is the lowest, sweet is the highest, and salty is the second. This means that people can not eat bitter, but can accept sweet comfort with satisfaction.
Among the five flavors, only "sweet" reflects the direct experience that the tongue depends on honey and sugar. Salty is mainly used to hang flavor, sour and spicy to create excitement, only sweet, full of peace and security.
The same is true of the functional distribution of taste cells on the tongue. Taste cells that feel sour are stationed on both sides of the tongue, bitter taste lurks in the root of the tongue, salty taste is distributed in front of the tongue, and taste cells that feel sweet are just concentrated on the most sensitive tip of the tongue. Ignoring or eating things on the tip of the tongue is like love without love letters and marriage without love.
Everything is arranged so well! It is only because other flavors are constantly added in the process of our growth that the difference between fate and individuals gradually widens. From preventing tooth decay to avoiding heat, sugar has been diluted, but it still covers and protects everyone's childhood memories like the first frost. It is better to regard the diagnosis of middle-aged sugar addiction as a flashback than as a sign of aging. On those distant mountains, the sweet frost has begun to melt, and they will merge into a river to ferry us back safely. Say, memory, as Zhang Ailing, who likes sweetness and softness, said, if it smells, it should be "sweet and stable, like remembering happiness clearly, sweet and melancholy, like forgetting sadness".