Colorado Researchers Find Key To Help Cancer Patients Keep Sense Of Taste

AURORA, Colo. (CBS4)- Researchers at University of Colorado Hospital have discovered a key step in how taste buds regenerate, which could help cancer patients who lose their sense of taste.

"My taste is gone. I feel like I'm eating a piece of metal," said cancer patient Alejandra Contreras.

Contreras, 42, can't taste the bitterness of coffee, the sour of citrus, the sweetness of cookies or wonderful salty side dishes.

Contreras has battled stomach and ovarian cancer and the many rounds of chemotherapy killed her cancer cells along with her taste buds.

"Even the water has a funny, gross taste," said Contreras.

"A lot of cancer drugs cause a loss or an altered sense of taste," said Dr. Linda Barlow, a professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Barlow and Dr. Dany Gaillard have discovered in mice a key genetic pathway, a signal, that controls the renewal of taste buds.

"We might be able to have like a topical cream or some kind of a lollipop that patients could suck on from time to time that would give them a local burst of this signal that they could perhaps retain or maintain their sense of taste a little bit better," said Barlow.

"That would be wonderful," said Contreras.