Perception gustative des lipides alimentaires : paradigme et paradoxes

Physiologie de la nutrition, UMR INSERM U 866, Ecole nationale supérieure de biologie appliquée à la nutrition et à l’alimentation (ENSBANA), Université de Bourgogne, 1 Esplanade Erasme, 21000 Dijon

^* pbesnard@u-bourgogne.fr

Abstract

Origin of spontaneous fat preference in mammals remains elusive. It is clearly a multimodal system resulting from the integration of orosensory and post-ingestive signals. For a long time, dietary lipids were thought to be only sensed in the oral cavity through their textural and olfactory cues. Recent data strongly suggest that the sense of taste also plays a significant role in the preference for lipid-rich foods and in lipid-mediated induction of cephalic phase of the digestion in rodents and in humans. Molecular and physiological mechanisms of this new paradigm become known. Some of these data were not fully expected and might be considered, as first sight, as paradoxical. The « fatty taste » paradigm and paradoxes are analyzed in this minireview.