Taste preferences change with age, as does taste itself

Tastes change with age, at least in rats, new research suggests.

Younger rats prefer more sugar and umami flavor in foods and showed a stronger aversion to bitter foods compared with elderly rats, according to a study presented today (July 30) at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior.

“To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating a reduced aversion to bitter taste in aged rats,” study co-author Chizuko Inui-Yamamoto, a researcher at Osaka University in Japan, said in a statement.