Project summary
Some people with type 2 diabetes might have differences in how their brains get messages about sweet flavours. Dr Sally Eldeghaidy wants to find out more about why this is, by looking for signals in brain scans. Her project could lead to a better understanding about how sweet things taste to people with type 2, and make it easier for them to choose healthier food and increase their chance of putting their type 2 diabetes into remission.
Background to research
An important part of managing type 2 diabetes is to eat a healthy, balanced diet. Some research suggests that people with type 2 diabetes might experience sweet flavours less strongly than people without diabetes. This could make it more challenging to eat healthily. But scientists don’t fully understand why this is.
Our tongues aren’t the only body part with a sense of taste – surprisingly, our gut can taste things too. And it’s linked to the brain by a connection called the gut-brain axis. Dr Sally Eldeghaidy thinks the gut-brain axis might be going wrong in people with type 2 diabetes and their gut might not taste sweet flavours properly. This could lead to problems with how signals about sweet tastes are sent to the brain.
Research aims
With her team, Dr Eldeghaidy wants to look at the brains of people with type 2 diabetes and prediabetes (when blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not enough to be diagnosed with type 2). They’ll do this with a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, which is able to measure activity and messaging between different areas of the brain.
After giving people a sweet drink, they’ll scan their brains and look at how messages about sweet flavours are sent between the tongue, the gut, and the brain. They’ll also do scans when people have had a sweet drink via a tube into their stomach, avoiding their tongues. All this should help them to understand if there are differences in the gut-brain axis messaging and how strongly sweet things taste for people with type 2 or prediabetes compared to people without diabetes.
Potential benefit to people with diabetes
Eating a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of managing type 2 diabetes, reducing type 2 risk, and could help people to lose weight and have the chance of going into remission. An understanding of how people with type 2 taste sweet things could help scientists to develop new treatments that make foods taste sweeter, without sugar. This could make it easier for people with or at risk of type 2 to choose healthier foods.
