Australian researchers state that one of their recent findings might be one of the keys to obesity and would open new avenues for the researchers to work on controlling obesity.

Deakin University, the University of Adelaide, CSIRO and Massey University (New Zealand), scientists have found that apart from five tastes that people can generally taste, there is one more taste, fat. It was concluded that people who were sensitive to the taste of fat had little chances of being overweight as they could not consume more fatty foods.

Dr Russell Keast says, “We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes - sweet, salt, sour, bitter and umami, a taste for identifying protein rich foods. Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste - fat.”

It was noted that people who had lesser sensitivity towards fat had higher BMIs and vice-versa.

Further research will now be conducted to find out why a segment of people is sensitive and some are not. These findings will also help researchers in finding ways to help people lower their fat intakes and aide development of new low fat foods and diets.