-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email Semaglutide — a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 agonist) that’s the active ingredient in blockbuster anti-obesity drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic — may heighten taste sensitivity in women with obesity. New research from the University Medical Center in Ljubljana, Slovenia found that the tongue cells of patients who took semaglutide experienced changes in gene expression that’s responsible for the perception of taste, namely sweetness. The recent findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
According to Medical News Today, the research was presented at ENDO 2024 , the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Boston, on June 1. Scientists at the University Medical Center were interested in seeing if humans who took semaglutide exhibited similar changes in taste sensitivity as animals who took semaglutide. In animals, GLP-1 — a hormone that stimulates insulin secretion and inhibits food intake — was shown to greatly impact taste sensitivity to sweetness.
A 2021 study published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences reported that mice who were incapable of producing GLP-1 had reduced neural and behavioral responses to sweet compounds. Related Ozempic, the "miracle drug," and the harmful idea of a future without fat For their study, the research team conducted a 16-week-long trial with 30 women participants who had an average Body Mass Index (or BMI) of 36.4.
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