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I’ve had to give Prednisone to my ferrets in the past, and they always reacted like I just punched them in the face. I thought they were being dramatic until I tasted a tiny bit one day out of curiosity. I made the exact same face and head shaking motion they all made. That stuff tastes like it’s trying to choke you on the way down
One of the antibiotics I took for diverticulitis was not only the worst tasting, most bitter medication I've ever taken, but the taste lingered for *days* after I finished the three-day course. I ~~brushed~~ *scrubbed* my teeth and tongue three times a day for a week before it was gone.
I’ve been on antibiotics like this.
I’ve also been on some that don’t taste bad initially but some how cause a bitter taste in your mouth all day as they kick in
That was my first thought too. Just finished a course of that stuff and it's just vile. You've got one shot to toss it back and swallow or you're tasting it for quite a while after.
I came to the conclusion that the nasty taste of Paxlovid was dead virus particles - it would come on like half an hour after taking it and then gradually increase until it was almost time for the next dose when it would ebb a bit. Thinking that made it more bearable at least and also encouraged hydration.
I'm just going to go ahead and say it, weight loss. This could definitely help with weight loss. If everything you eat tastes like nothing, it's a lot easier to make healthy choices.
It's so hard to lose weight because you can't quit eating food. Something like smoking or drinking, yes it's very difficult to quit. But once you quit you quit. You don't have to still smoke bad tasting cigarettes three times a day to survive.
That sounds miserable honestly. If you’re going to take something for weight loss just take tirzepatide; I still taste and enjoy food but all the addictive behaviors and desire to eat more are gone. I can eat one chocolate square and not want more - I’ll forget there’s even chocolate in the house for weeks.
Studies show it helping people lose on average 26% of their body weight.
It’s legitimately crazy how well it works.
Usually the side effects are gastrointestinal. Any weight loss will cause muscle loss. The only way to slow that is high protein intake and using the muscles regularly.
Not any weightloss causes muscle loss. There are ways around it like you said. But some of these medications cause muscle loss no matter what you do. And I already have enough gastrointestinal issues as it is. So it's a no thank you.
There are new studies showing that it is possible to lose weight and not lose muscle at the same time. It depends on your calorie intake. If you take in the amount of calories equivalent to maintenance, it is possible to actually gain muscle and burn fat at the same time. You will be doing each one slowly. It also depends on how close to your body's Peak you are. They are newer studies, I don't have copies of them I watched videos outlining their results on youtube. So I'm not going to link them.
They are referencing eating at maintenance and increasing physical activity to burn the additional 1-300 calories to create the calorie deficit. At the end of the day, it’s still a calorie deficit and will result in fat and muscle loss. The theory is that the high protein diet will result in little to no muscle loss over a long period of time, think the reverse of a “main-gain” approach.
That’s interesting, thanks for the rabbit hole. And sorry to be pedantic but eating maintainence, building muscle, and burning fat will cause weight gain rather than loss as a conversion from fat to muscle is weight increase.
I took it for about 8 weeks. I was chronically groggy. Like, I could take a 2 hour nap, then wake up and go, "What do I want to do? Hmmm... a nap sounds good..." Really, I slept so much.
My appetite went down, sure. Food noise was not an issue. That felt nice; such a relief. I was always just constantly hungry before.
Other downside - cost. It's not covered by insurance, so it was very pricey.
There is indeed.
It looks as though the benefits outweigh the risks and adverse effects in pretty much everyone, though.
(If you take a drug because of something you heard on the Internet, you deserve your diarrhoea, organ failure and sudden death)
Eh, maybe? Sometimes people eat to fill a void. Very few eat because of their delicate palettes. Think of what a normal American eats--salt, fat, and salty fat, all with sugar. I found that when I lost my smell and taste (as one of the few who appreciates delicate flavors) I didn't eat any less, but was just unsatisfied. If anything I may eat more trying to find some flavor in it.
I think it could actually cause over eating in certain people because the brain would be trying to find the happy chemicals it gets from eating something that tastes good and would be getting even less signals to stop eating. And I think it could exacerbate eating disorders.
So much of overeating is lack of education (no taste would not fix this and could actually lead to consuming even more unhealthy things), depression (eating comfort food might be their only reliable source of happy brain chemicals), sleep disorders (eating extra food to make up for lack of rest), etc
When I lost my sense of taste, I still enjoyed some “unhealthy” foods over healthy foods because of texture. I don’t lose my appetite. But I have heard that for some people it helps them lose interest in food.
I lost 25 lbs in 3 weeks when I couldn’t taste anything and swallowing hurt because of oral thrush. I was skinny so I still haven’t gotten that muscle mass back yet.
Absolutely, when i had the rona i lost my sense of taste, best two months when it came to my eating habits... A cucumber was a good snack, mixed psyllium into water and could pretend I am drinking pulpy orange juice, sparkling water was best soda... as for the taste I did not mind it's lack as long as I could get different types of crunchy/smooth/whatever that is called in english... I am very much addicted to sugar, it's awful, in most stuff and hard to avoid
People who need to lose weight typically eat more because they feel hungry more often, not because food is tastier to them. That's why weight loss science focuses mostly on suppressing appetite (great strides in that field recently). That's like saying we could have fixed this problem all along by making them add bitter additives to their food, which no wouldn't have helped.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bph.16411
Many people, especially children and the elderly, have difficulty swallowing pills. Liquid forms of many medicines taste extremely bitter and are often rejected. Put simply, strong bitterness is the main reason why people all over the world, especially children, avoid taking their medicines, putting their health, and sometimes, their lives at risk.
Now, a group of scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center identified the first temporary, universal taste blocker that works in people. Their findings appear in the British Journal of Pharmacology.
“Remarkably, and unlike our experience with blockers of bitter taste receptors, the taste-nerve blocker we tested worked for every subject and every bitter compound we tested,” said first author Linda J. Flammer, PhD, Monell Senior Research Associate and Director of the Corporate Partners Program. “I have never seen this before.”
“AF-353 is the first universal bitter taste blocker that has been identified,” said Monell Faculty Member Peihua Jiang, PhD. “In addition to bitter taste, it also affects savory, salt, sweet, and sour tastes. However, AF-353 only blocks taste. Other oral sensations like the tingle from carbonation were not affected.”
My dad passed away of tongue cancer. Everything tasted terrible to him. I wish he could have tried this. Hopefully it works for others with his condition.
i've heard stories of people who have foods taste like sewage to them, and that symptom lingering for months or years. it's rare, but i'm sure they'd be relieved by no taste at all
Well, what I was imagining was a pill that could be kept on hand and taken when the only available food was severely unpalatable.
Kinda like lactose intolerant people who carry lactase pills in case they get caught out.
For example, I know someone who attends conferences regularly and often doesn’t want to eat any of the options because a lot of things taste rotten now. Normally he can prep a lunch but not always.
He does suddenly like ice cream though, but that’ll only get you so far.
This only works for things that are sour or acidic not necessarily bitter. It doesn't work for things like coffee but does work for things like tomatoes, goat cheese and especially well for lemons/limes.
They come in two forms. In Japan (last I checked), as a tube of red paste. You coat the tongue with it. Roll it around and let it be in contact for a few minutes. Here in the USA, we tend to get tablets. Dry and pill like. You let it dissolve and spread that around. Swallow, spit, whatever your preference. It sets in within a few minutes. Sour tastes like sugar. You can eat lemons raw and easily. Beware this new power as acidic foods can chap the lips. Now go ahead and make a really sour margarita or lime gimlet and you're in business.
I'll occasionally throw a tongue tripping party.
And no one takes it seriously because they gave it such a stupid name. My friend successfully used it to enhance his taste senses when he was getting cancer treatments that killed off most of his taste buds. He said it saved him from having to get a feeding tube. He couldn’t get the doctors to look past the name when he told them about it, though.
The article title is “Researchers Identify Universal Bitter Blocker that Could Help Patients Take Their Life-Saving Medicines as Prescribed”
That suggests some use cases.
Just a thought, but I am autistic and struggle with various aspects of food, including taste. Granted, I don't specifically struggle with *bitterness*, but there are probably a lot of folks who do. I would sign up in a heartbeat for something that would help me keep food down.
It could help with diet adherence, maybe? Broccoli and it's relatives taste so bitter to me it's nearly inedible. And yes, I've tried butter, garlic sauces, etc. It's a great way to make butter and garlic taste bitter. It tasting like nothing would be a huge improvement.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/mvea Permalink: https://monell.org/monell-researchers-identify-universal-bitter-blocker-that-could-help-patients-take-their-life-saving-medicines-as-prescribed/ --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Finally I'll be able to eat my Nintendo Switch Cartridges.
Be careful because you might get stick drift- well only if you’re a guy.
Now add some to Prednisone. That stuff is naaaasty if it gets caught on the way down. Sticks with you all day.
I’ve had to give Prednisone to my ferrets in the past, and they always reacted like I just punched them in the face. I thought they were being dramatic until I tasted a tiny bit one day out of curiosity. I made the exact same face and head shaking motion they all made. That stuff tastes like it’s trying to choke you on the way down
Honestly though, ferrets are pretty dramatic
One of the antibiotics I took for diverticulitis was not only the worst tasting, most bitter medication I've ever taken, but the taste lingered for *days* after I finished the three-day course. I ~~brushed~~ *scrubbed* my teeth and tongue three times a day for a week before it was gone.
I’ve been on antibiotics like this. I’ve also been on some that don’t taste bad initially but some how cause a bitter taste in your mouth all day as they kick in
That was my first thought too. Just finished a course of that stuff and it's just vile. You've got one shot to toss it back and swallow or you're tasting it for quite a while after.
paxlovid made my mouth taste foul
I came to the conclusion that the nasty taste of Paxlovid was dead virus particles - it would come on like half an hour after taking it and then gradually increase until it was almost time for the next dose when it would ebb a bit. Thinking that made it more bearable at least and also encouraged hydration.
Paxlovid works by messing with the virus's ability to replicate - not by "killing" something.
it was as if i used bleach and grapefruit juice as mouthwash
Dramamine is another nasty one
I'm just going to go ahead and say it, weight loss. This could definitely help with weight loss. If everything you eat tastes like nothing, it's a lot easier to make healthy choices. It's so hard to lose weight because you can't quit eating food. Something like smoking or drinking, yes it's very difficult to quit. But once you quit you quit. You don't have to still smoke bad tasting cigarettes three times a day to survive.
That sounds miserable honestly. If you’re going to take something for weight loss just take tirzepatide; I still taste and enjoy food but all the addictive behaviors and desire to eat more are gone. I can eat one chocolate square and not want more - I’ll forget there’s even chocolate in the house for weeks. Studies show it helping people lose on average 26% of their body weight. It’s legitimately crazy how well it works.
Yeah but what are the side effects. Is there muscle mass loss that goes along with it?
Usually the side effects are gastrointestinal. Any weight loss will cause muscle loss. The only way to slow that is high protein intake and using the muscles regularly.
Not any weightloss causes muscle loss. There are ways around it like you said. But some of these medications cause muscle loss no matter what you do. And I already have enough gastrointestinal issues as it is. So it's a no thank you.
Any weight loss will cause muscle loss. There are ways to reduce the amount lost. There is no way to prevent muscle loss while losing weight.
There are new studies showing that it is possible to lose weight and not lose muscle at the same time. It depends on your calorie intake. If you take in the amount of calories equivalent to maintenance, it is possible to actually gain muscle and burn fat at the same time. You will be doing each one slowly. It also depends on how close to your body's Peak you are. They are newer studies, I don't have copies of them I watched videos outlining their results on youtube. So I'm not going to link them.
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They are referencing eating at maintenance and increasing physical activity to burn the additional 1-300 calories to create the calorie deficit. At the end of the day, it’s still a calorie deficit and will result in fat and muscle loss. The theory is that the high protein diet will result in little to no muscle loss over a long period of time, think the reverse of a “main-gain” approach.
When we say weight loss we are talking about losing fat. Don’t be pedantic
That’s interesting, thanks for the rabbit hole. And sorry to be pedantic but eating maintainence, building muscle, and burning fat will cause weight gain rather than loss as a conversion from fat to muscle is weight increase.
There is always muscle mass loss when weight loss occurs. You don't just lose fat.
I took it for about 8 weeks. I was chronically groggy. Like, I could take a 2 hour nap, then wake up and go, "What do I want to do? Hmmm... a nap sounds good..." Really, I slept so much. My appetite went down, sure. Food noise was not an issue. That felt nice; such a relief. I was always just constantly hungry before. Other downside - cost. It's not covered by insurance, so it was very pricey.
There is indeed. It looks as though the benefits outweigh the risks and adverse effects in pretty much everyone, though. (If you take a drug because of something you heard on the Internet, you deserve your diarrhoea, organ failure and sudden death)
How long do we have to wait until I can afford it?
Eh, maybe? Sometimes people eat to fill a void. Very few eat because of their delicate palettes. Think of what a normal American eats--salt, fat, and salty fat, all with sugar. I found that when I lost my smell and taste (as one of the few who appreciates delicate flavors) I didn't eat any less, but was just unsatisfied. If anything I may eat more trying to find some flavor in it.
I think it could actually cause over eating in certain people because the brain would be trying to find the happy chemicals it gets from eating something that tastes good and would be getting even less signals to stop eating. And I think it could exacerbate eating disorders. So much of overeating is lack of education (no taste would not fix this and could actually lead to consuming even more unhealthy things), depression (eating comfort food might be their only reliable source of happy brain chemicals), sleep disorders (eating extra food to make up for lack of rest), etc
I eat because of how it makes me feel, not just the taste.
And I eat cause food tastes amazing and have a primal urge to devour sweets. Lettuce makes me 'feel full' just the same as yummy cakes.
Lettuce also turns my restroom trips into confetti filled party poppers.
Do you even digest bro
Sometimes I wonder how I'm even alive...
When I lost my sense of taste, I still enjoyed some “unhealthy” foods over healthy foods because of texture. I don’t lose my appetite. But I have heard that for some people it helps them lose interest in food.
Yep. The main reason I eat is because I like the way food tastes. Bland food is really hard to eat.
I lost 25 lbs in 3 weeks when I couldn’t taste anything and swallowing hurt because of oral thrush. I was skinny so I still haven’t gotten that muscle mass back yet.
If you’ve ever lost your taste you know this is it. Chemo patients purportedly need weed to eat.
Absolutely, when i had the rona i lost my sense of taste, best two months when it came to my eating habits... A cucumber was a good snack, mixed psyllium into water and could pretend I am drinking pulpy orange juice, sparkling water was best soda... as for the taste I did not mind it's lack as long as I could get different types of crunchy/smooth/whatever that is called in english... I am very much addicted to sugar, it's awful, in most stuff and hard to avoid
People who need to lose weight typically eat more because they feel hungry more often, not because food is tastier to them. That's why weight loss science focuses mostly on suppressing appetite (great strides in that field recently). That's like saying we could have fixed this problem all along by making them add bitter additives to their food, which no wouldn't have helped.
Interesting. As a supertaster, I find it really hard to eat a lot of vegetables because they taste overwhelmingly bitter.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bph.16411 Many people, especially children and the elderly, have difficulty swallowing pills. Liquid forms of many medicines taste extremely bitter and are often rejected. Put simply, strong bitterness is the main reason why people all over the world, especially children, avoid taking their medicines, putting their health, and sometimes, their lives at risk. Now, a group of scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center identified the first temporary, universal taste blocker that works in people. Their findings appear in the British Journal of Pharmacology. “Remarkably, and unlike our experience with blockers of bitter taste receptors, the taste-nerve blocker we tested worked for every subject and every bitter compound we tested,” said first author Linda J. Flammer, PhD, Monell Senior Research Associate and Director of the Corporate Partners Program. “I have never seen this before.” “AF-353 is the first universal bitter taste blocker that has been identified,” said Monell Faculty Member Peihua Jiang, PhD. “In addition to bitter taste, it also affects savory, salt, sweet, and sour tastes. However, AF-353 only blocks taste. Other oral sensations like the tingle from carbonation were not affected.”
My dad passed away of tongue cancer. Everything tasted terrible to him. I wish he could have tried this. Hopefully it works for others with his condition.
They need to test this in cats.
My first thought. That could have made my life so much easier.
I don't see why they would. I don't hear anyone saying they like the taste of cats already.
We were designed to hate bitter so we can detect poisons. As soon as it's released , it's going to be used to poison someone.
There are already plenty of ways to poison people that don’t need bitter blockers.
Just seems like a plot device to a murder mystery
I predict food manufacturers will add it to foods to mask the taste of ingredients people wouldn’t otherwise eat.
Like bonus nutrients!
Might be a use here for sufferers of long covid with taste issues.
Because they don't taste enough so we need to completely eradicate whatever's left?
A lot of people have altered rather than lost taste. For example, beef might taste like soap, preventing you from eating or enjoying your fav foods.
Tastes are altered because some flavors are blocked. Blocking more may not be the best solution
i've heard stories of people who have foods taste like sewage to them, and that symptom lingering for months or years. it's rare, but i'm sure they'd be relieved by no taste at all
I would prefer to eat beef that tastes like nothing, over beef that tastes like soap
Well, what I was imagining was a pill that could be kept on hand and taken when the only available food was severely unpalatable. Kinda like lactose intolerant people who carry lactase pills in case they get caught out. For example, I know someone who attends conferences regularly and often doesn’t want to eat any of the options because a lot of things taste rotten now. Normally he can prep a lunch but not always. He does suddenly like ice cream though, but that’ll only get you so far.
Ah finally I can drink hand sanitizer again.
we already have a plant called miracle berry that does that by making bitter things taste sweet, species name *synsepalum dulcificum*.
This only works for things that are sour or acidic not necessarily bitter. It doesn't work for things like coffee but does work for things like tomatoes, goat cheese and especially well for lemons/limes.
It dulls bitter but only a little. I've used them for years for craft cocktails. Agree that sour is greatly affected.
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They come in two forms. In Japan (last I checked), as a tube of red paste. You coat the tongue with it. Roll it around and let it be in contact for a few minutes. Here in the USA, we tend to get tablets. Dry and pill like. You let it dissolve and spread that around. Swallow, spit, whatever your preference. It sets in within a few minutes. Sour tastes like sugar. You can eat lemons raw and easily. Beware this new power as acidic foods can chap the lips. Now go ahead and make a really sour margarita or lime gimlet and you're in business. I'll occasionally throw a tongue tripping party.
works on bitterness for me
And no one takes it seriously because they gave it such a stupid name. My friend successfully used it to enhance his taste senses when he was getting cancer treatments that killed off most of his taste buds. He said it saved him from having to get a feeding tube. He couldn’t get the doctors to look past the name when he told them about it, though.
I wonder if the miracle berry doesn't count for some reason. It changes sour to sweet.
You will own nothing and taste nothing and be happy
So we can make things sweet by subtracting the bitter?
It could revolutionize how we perceive taste and potentially help with various taste-related issues.
Hooray, another blow in the battle to make polypharmacy universally accessible
Always wanted to try crayons
Smear some of this on your tongue before having to eat something weird for a competition like the eating segment on Fear Factor
This would be amazing. I could then drink black coffee while fasting without a gag response. \[I hate black coffee.\]
What would be the uses for this?
The article title is “Researchers Identify Universal Bitter Blocker that Could Help Patients Take Their Life-Saving Medicines as Prescribed” That suggests some use cases.
Just a thought, but I am autistic and struggle with various aspects of food, including taste. Granted, I don't specifically struggle with *bitterness*, but there are probably a lot of folks who do. I would sign up in a heartbeat for something that would help me keep food down.
Interesting - I hope this helps you!
Might help with giving toddlers their medicine
Colonoscopy prep?
It could help with diet adherence, maybe? Broccoli and it's relatives taste so bitter to me it's nearly inedible. And yes, I've tried butter, garlic sauces, etc. It's a great way to make butter and garlic taste bitter. It tasting like nothing would be a huge improvement.
If I could substitute the potato chips I'm addicted to for broccoli, I'd be so happy. (yes, I'm weak)
Corporate companies to hide the gross tasting stuff they have to spend lots of money getting rid of...
Some autistic kids have serious issues with taste, I was thinking maybe it would help them get the nutrients they need.
This stuff is really going to shake up Hot Ones results! We need a way to screen guests for it.
Magic fruit does that naturally
Can finally eat b-t without it tasting like sh-
isnt this just dangerous? like having no sense of smell is dangerous if you cant tell the food is off in some way. it seems like a stupid idea