Zee Media Bureau
London: Well there are umpteen number of reasons why you shouldn't smoke. Adding to that, there is another one now which says that smoking totally ruins your taste buds. Your taste buds being affected, you won't be able to completely enjoy the food/drinks that you really like.
It happens so that smokers' ability to taste is impaired by toxic chemicals found in tobacco, even after they have quit smoking. So they do not enjoy their coffee despite the strong, bitter taste of caffeine which can be easily detected.
Scientists tested how well 451 volunteers could recognise the four basic flavours of sweet, sour, bitter and salty, as well as the intensity of each taste as a part of this study.
Researchers found that whether the volunteers smoked or not did not affect whether they could recognise salty, sweet or sour tastes -- but it did have an effect where the bitter taste of caffeine was concerned.
One in five smokers and one in four ex-smokers could not correctly recognise the taste.However, 13 percent of non-smokers also failed the taste test.
According to the researchers ,the build-up of tobacco in the body could stop taste buds renewing themselves and so harm a person’s ability to recognise certain tastes, even after they have stopped smoking.
