Taste science-relationship between aging and taste sensitivity

Abstract

Japan has entered the super-aging society before the world. One of the characteristics of aging in Japan is that the difference between average life expectancy and healthy life expectancy is 10 years on average. One of the approaches to extending healthy life expectancy is to eat a nutritionally balanced diet. In general, the quality of food tends to decrease with aging, such as a decrease in food intake and a bias in consumption items. Poor food quality leads to a decline in physical fitness, followed by a decline in appetite, resulting in a vicious cycle. Therefore, maintaining a good diet can be key to maintaining good health. So why does the quality of the diet deteriorate? The cause is a decrease in taste function due to aging. However, it is unclear why aging deteriorates taste function. In this paper, we first outline the mechanism of taste reception in mammals, and then introduce our efforts to examine factors that cause age-dependent changes in taste sensitivity.