Say Cheese! Experts Explain Why People Have A Love Hate Relationship With Cheese

Cheese is a common dairy product. In France, there are 1,600 varieties of cheese. Some cheese is being loved by people while some hate the taste and smell. Now, researchers are trying to figure out what causes the trigger to hate cheese.

A team of researchers at the Centre de Recherche en Neuroscience de Lyon and the Laboratoire Neuroscience Paris Seine (CNRS/INSERM/UPMC) studied the reaction of people with cheese. Experts found that a lot of people dislike this dairy product. They discovered that aversion plays a role and therefore they investigate the cerebral mechanism.

In the study, experts gathered samples of 332 individuals and check their intuition. They found that the food that mostly trigger aversion is cheese. Among that individual, 2.4% have an aversion on cured meats, 2.7% in fish, and 6% with cheese. For those who had an aversion with cheese, 18% reported that it is because they are lactose intolerant. As for the remaining 47% of cases, researchers found that in every family member at least one does not like cheese either. The experts claimed that these figures lead them to a genetic origin to this aversion, which might be related to lactose intolerance, in a report by Medical News Today. 

To further investigate what happens inside the brain, researchers studied 15 people who like cheese and 15 who do not. They use functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI to study. The participants were asked to look at the image and smell the six types of different cheese, and six types of control food. The volunteers then will report if they like the smell and sight and if at the moment they wanted to eat them.

The researchers then conclude that the ventral pallidum, which is a small structure that activates when people are hungry, it was inactive when the smell and image of cheese were shown to the participants that do not like cheese. But, it is activated when the remaining food was shown. What surprises the experts is that the globus pallidus and the substantia nigra, which is the reward circuit, were more involved with the people who does not like cheese compared to those who do, according to Medical Xpress. 

 The experts explained that there is a dual nature. The two regions of the neuron have a complimentary activity one that is related to the rewarding aspect of food and the other one is the aversive nature. The researchers claimed that their study provides an insight into the areas of the brain that can encode disgust.