Mice lifespan trial confounder: taste?

#1

In ITP and other lifespan trials I typically see the intervention is placed in the food.

I wonder about a confounder of taste: since caloric restriction works well, would putting bad tasting stuff in the food seem to produce a lifespan extension that is actually just the mice eating less because it tastes bad?

I wonder this about NAC which tastes terrible, and had good results combined with glycine in one trial.

Is amount of food eaten measured to reduce this confounder in eg ITP?

#2

I think that if the taste of any given compound was really bad, and it impacted the food consumption rate of the mice, that they would notice it in the average daily food consumption rates…

That is, if the mice are eating significantly less of the food combination, the researchers would notice it, see a reduction in weight of the mice, and probably be alert to it.

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