Semaglutide improved taste sensitivity, changed gene expression in the tongue that’s responsible for taste perception, and changed the brain’s response to sweet tastes, according to research presented Saturday at ENDO 2024, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Boston, Mass.

Jensterle Sever and colleagues designed a proof-of-concept study on the impact of GLP-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) semaglutide on taste perception. They randomly assigned a sample of 30 women with an average 36.4 BMI to either semaglutide 1 mg or placebo.

“Our findings build upon preliminary animal studies showing that central administration of GLP-1RA medications impacts taste aversion to sweetness,” Jensterle Sever said.

For 16 weeks, the researchers measured their taste sensitivity using strips containing different concentrations of four basic tastes. They used functional MRI to measure brain responses to a sweet solution dripping onto the tongue before and after the women ate a standard meal. They also administered a tongue biopsy to evaluate the participants’ mRNA expression in the collected tongue tissue.

Those in the treatment group experienced changes in taste perception, taste bud gene expression and brain activity in response to sweet taste stimuli.

The genes EYA, PRMT8, CRLF1, and CYP1B1, which exhibited differential mRNA expression in all the tests in the analysis, are connected to our taste pathways, neural plasticity, and the renewal of taste buds in the tongue.

The study also revealed insights into the brain’s response to the GLP-1 receptor, particularly in the angular gyrus-;a part of the brain that influences language and number processing, memory and reasoning.