Beware -- smoking can ruin your delicate sense of taste!

It gives your heart disease, ruins your libido, gives you cancer, makes your look horrible and even ruins your oral health and here's another reason to kick the butt it ruins your taste buds. Smokers do not enjoy their coffee despite the strong, bitter taste of caffeine being easily detected. It seems their ability to taste is impaired by toxic chemicals found in tobacco, even after they have quit smoking.

As part of the study, scientists tested how well 451 volunteers could recognise the four basic flavours of sweet, sour, bitter and salty, as well as the intensity of each taste. Researchers found that whether the volunteers smoked or not did not affect whether they could recognise salty, sweet or sour tastes -- but it did have an effect where the bitter taste of caffeine was concerned.

One in five smokers and one in four ex-smokers could not correctly recognise the taste. However, 13 percent of non-smokers also failed the taste test. Researchers believe the build-up of tobacco in the body could stop taste buds renewing themselves and so harm a person's ability to recognise certain tastes, even after they have stopped smoking. The findings of the study have been published in the latest edition of the journal 'Chemosensory Perception'.

Different ways to quit smoking

Cold Turkey The oldest and most successful method is going 'cold turkey' that is quitting smoking without taking any substitute for nicotine. 75% people who've quit smoking claim to have done so without the aid of any aid or supplement. Coupled with therapy and intervention cold turkey is supposed to be the best way to quit. There are various websites and helplines which help people quit without the aid of any medicines. Most replacement therapies look to chemically substitute the nicotine hit of smoking but it just means switching from one addiction to another.

Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRT) NRT looks to take care of nicotine craving by providing a substitute source without the harmful effects of tobacco. It works on the principle that though nicotine is the 'addictive' part of cigarettes the more dangerous ones are tar, carbon monoxide and other gases. There are various products under this Nicorette umbrella which look to aid cessation including chewing gums, lozenges, nasal sprays, patches and inhalers. Some electronic cigarettes also have nicotine filters.

Electronic cigarettes An electronic cigarette is a device that mimics the entire smoking process by producing a mist which has the same sensation (sometimes the same flavour too) of smoking. Some of them have nicotine and some of them don't. Click here to read more about e-cigarettes.

You might also like to read:

• Is smoking really a 'social habit'?
• How smoking affects your heart
• 10 facts about passive smoking

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