It is well known that taste perception influences food intake. After ingestion, gustatory receptors relay sensory signals to the brain, which segregates, evaluates, and distinguishes the stimuli, leading to the experience known as "flavor." It is well accepted that five taste qualities -sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami -can be perceived by animals. In this review, the anatomy and physiology of human taste buds, the hormonal modulation of taste function, the importance of genetic chemosensory variation, and the influence of gustatory functioning on macronutrient selection and eating behavior are discussed. Individual genotypic variation results in specific phenotypes of food preference and nutrient intake. Understanding the role of taste in food selection and ingestive behavior is important for expanding our understanding of the factors involved in body weight maintenance and the risk of chronic diseases including obesity, atherosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, liver disease, and hypertension.

Even though glycogen overloading of the liver was first described as a component of Mauriac syndrome in 1930, glycogenic hepatopathy (GH) is still an under-recognized complication of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). GH diagnosis is challenging as it is clinically difficult to distinguish GH from steatohepatitis or glycogen storage disease, and liver biopsy is essential for confirmatory diagnosis. GH is usually a transient condition with unknown long-term complications. We present a case of GH with persistent marked hepatomegaly over 5 years despite normalization of liver enzymes in a patient with uncontrolled T1DM.

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