As you aged did you become more sensitive to the taste of sugar and salt?

I haven’t noticed any change in my sensitivity to any particular tastes.

Yea I can’t stand sugary drinks now.
I’ve always drank water and low sugar drinks like a Gin and Tonic for example.

I tried some blue curacao and a margarita mix that had 48 grams of sugar and I literally couldn’t force myself to drink it.

Sugar just seems more disgusting than it did in the past.

Not necessarily as I aged, but as I switched diet. If I eat less salt or sugar or fat, I notice them more when I do have more, and the typical amount I have starts to seem more normal. It doesn’t take very long for me to notice the effect.

Age might also have some effect – I don’t know, but I noticed the other effect when I was quite young.

Currently, a mix of cold coffee, 2% milk, and oat milk, tastes almost like a milkshake, to me.

I can still eat a full-on sugary dessert, but I certainly don’t need to to enjoy some sweetness.

I have recently found hamburgers too salty for my taste. In & Out, McDonald’s, Burger King…

Ok, this is a little off the wall, but when I got a partial I noticed a significant decrease in my ability to taste. Apparently when we chew our tongue naturally presses food up to the roof of our mouth. With a partial plate there, it blocks the flavors. You don’t have to answer of course, but could that be an issue with you? Just throwing it out there for your consideration. :)

^^Nope. I have all of my natural teeth except the wisdom teeth they cut out when I was a teenager.

I lost 2 to root canals; they don’t show in my smile, so I opted for a partial.

I can’t eat or (especially) drink overly sweet things anymore.

I stopped drinking soda twenty years ago and stopped adding sweetener to coffee about ten years ago — so if I get a sweetened drink by accident and take a sip, it tastes SO OVERLY SWEET. Gah!!

I still eat the occasional baked good (cookies, ‘natch), but sweet fillings, frosting, candy, etc. — I just can’t eat any more.

Even chocolate, I have to have very dark, almost bitter chocolate.

I used to only like stronger seasoned foods. Preferably spicy. More specifically, sweet and spicy…

I don’t want to derail the thread, but since my liver transplant my tastes are different.
I would say I used to prefer only spicy food. Post-op, I can actually smell better, so I taste things better. And therefore appreciate all varieties of foods more.
Before my surgery, I had bad allergies. Not anymore, for whatever reason. So. I can now breathe through my nose, all the time! I am learning to use sent, and smells to add details to my situational awareness…

I was VERY sick, for several years. I loosely remember that time. Can’t say if time, or the transplant changed my tastes…

@MrGrimm888 Interesting. I wonder if the mega antibiotics they must have given you after the surgery cured the sinus trouble you were having.

I had a lactose intolerance for 8 years and then I did mega IV antibiotics for something unrelated and I could drink milk and eat cheese again. I am not sure if it was the antibiotics or maybe the mega anti fungals I was given after the antibiotics, but I really think it was the penicillin, because I had been treated with several antifungals previously (waste of time and abuse to my liver, long story) and that never made me better.

^I have no clue. But I’ve been told that changes are not anomalous following such radical procedures.

To add help to your hypothesis, I also had a few staphylococcus infections. All requiring nuclear option antibiotics. So. Maybe you’re on to something.
I was always able to breathe through my nose in a desert environment, but never where there were lots of plants (like where I’m sitting right now, about three miles from Cypress Gardens Swamp.)...
Now. No problems. It’s crazy.

Not a lot of thorough research has been conducted yet, as far as the TOTAL effects of things like bone marrow recipients, and major organ transplants. There is some info, but there aren’t like hundreds of publications on studies about long term changes. Everything is about actual anatomy and physiology.
I wouldn’t mind participating in a study, on changes in patients like me, focusing on personality, and mentality. I think differences could be appreciated there, perhaps in all transplant survivors…

My surgery was in October, so I went through the allergy gauntlet of spring with no problems. It was a complete shock.

Wow.

Since I cut back on both sugar and salt, I definitely will eat stuff sometimes and think it’s either too sweet or too salty.