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Obesity is now considered as a disease requiring treatment and prevention efforts by reason of severe associated co-morbidities and its growing prevalence in worldwide population. Although origin of this “epidemic” situation is clearly multifactorial, recent changes in our life-style especially about our food supply with an easy access to low-cost energy-dense foods seem to play a significant causal role in this phenomenon. Studies also report that obesity is frequently associated with a preferential consumption of high palatable foods rich in fat and sugar. Since these foods are pleasant and have high hedonic quality, this obesogenic eating behavior change raises the possibility of an alteration of orosensory perception system as a consequence of obesity. This hypothesis has led to a recent literature on the relationship between obesity and sensory sensitivity, known to play a significant role in the food choice. The purpose of this mini-review, focused on the orosensory perception of dietary lipids (i.e. taste of fat), is to provide a short overview of what is observed in food-induced obese rodents as compared to what is found in patients with obesity. It tries to answer to the following basic question: is obesity associated with a loss of orosensory sensitivity to dietary lipids that leads to obesogenic food choices?

Origin of the great inter-individual variability of the fatty taste perception found in obese subjects is challenging. The fact that recent studies suggest interrelations between taste perception and oral microbiota composition, prompt us to explore the putative impact of such a connection in the context of obesity. To check this hypothesis, the oro-sensory perception thresholds of linoleic acid and the composition of oral microbiota surrounding the gustatory circumvallate papillae (CVPs) were analyzed in obese adult men (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2, n = 42). A specific microbial signature (higher diversity, pro-inflammatory bacterial profile, lower methanogenesis activity) discriminated subjects with a degraded fatty taste sensitivity (perception threshold ≥ 0.05% LA = Low-LA tasters, n = 22) from high-LA tasters (n = 20). Collectively, these data substantiate the association between the microbial microenvironment surrounding CVPs and the fatty taste sensitivity and provide a plausible explanation about the variability of the fatty taste sensitivity in obesity.