Just a few days ago I did a post about a study, which showed that endotoxin (LPS) makes body odor unpleasant and leads to both self-isolation and shunning from others. The study below adds more evidence to the LPS puzzle by showing that exposure to LPS strongly increased aversion to bitter taste, while also blunting preference for sweet taste. The authors note that while the study in question was specifically about the effects of LPS administration, the same taste preference changes occur in many chronic conditions, including cancer and neurological diseases. I think the main benefit of the study is that if it found that LPS causes systemic inflammation and can change the taste phenotype to match the type of many (inflammatory) chronic diseases, then LPS is likely a major cause of those diseases, which is something medicine continues to deny. Just as importantly, as the study itself states, if cancer treatments are known to increase aversion to bitter taste then it would not be too fat fetched to hypothesize that those “treatments” achieve that effect by increasing LPS absorption from the gut into the blood, where said LPS massively increases inflammation and likely contributes to the deterioration of the cancer patient, so the “treatment” is anything but helpful.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/chemse\/bjad020<\/a><\/p>\n The Bitter Truth: Illness, Inflammation, and the Genetic Code of Taste<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n