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Tasting History
Published in Alan R. Hirsch, Nutrition and Sensation, 2023
In addition to challenging the taste map, Bartoshuk is well known for her work on supertasters. Through her work on bitterness, using PROP (6-n-propyl-thiouracil), she found that not all people perceive taste with the same intensity. She concluded that roughly 25% of the population cannot taste PROP (nontasters); 50% of the population taste PROP (tasters); 25% of the population taste PROP intensely (supertasters) (Bartoshuk 1991, 2000).2 Based on her early research on supertasters, Bartoshuk found that supertaster’s have more taste buds per surface area than either tasters or nontaster (Miller and Reedy, Jr. 1990). The effects of enhanced taste perception actually made eating a less pleasant experience and, in certain instances, even painful for her subjects (Karrer and Bartoshuk 1991). Bartoshuk observed that “both female and male supertasters were thinner among subjects with normal body weight” (Bartoshuk 2000). Additionally, supertasters experience even sweet and fatty sensations more powerfully than the rest of the population. It seems that supertasters are less interested in food because it is too intense and it does not taste particularly good to them. Supertasters appear to eat to live and not live to eat. Perhaps what is most interesting in Bartoshuk’s review essay is that she concedes that taste is far more complex than genetic or biological disposition would indicate. As different cultures favor a wide variety of flavors that reflect ethnic, regional, or national palates, which are based on long-held flavor preferences and food availability, a purely scientific or biological approach to food choice does not fully explain what is eaten or more importantly what is tasted.
Single nucleotide polymorphisms of taste genes and caries: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Published in Acta Odontologica Scandinavica, 2021
Luiz Alexandre Chisini, Mariana Gonzalez Cademartori, Marcus Cristian Muniz Conde, Francine dos Santos Costa, Luana Carla Salvi, Luciana Tovo-Rodrigues, Marcos Britto Correa
While polymorphism in CD36 suggests a possible influence in the fast taste perceptions, decreasing the attraction to these foods in mice [31], TAS2R38 gene – taste receptor gene cluster on chromosome 12p13/taste receptor, type-2, member 38 – is responsible to sensitivity to the bitter compound of propylthiouracilis. They are a member of the G-protein-coupled receptor superfamily. These proteins are expressed mainly in the epithelial cells of tongue and palate. In special, the SNP rs713598 lead a change of amino acid alanine to proline at position 49. Besides, it is a candidate gene to sweet taste perception [32–34]. Homozygote to Alanine (AA) individuals are referred as ‘nontasters’, while allele heterozygote (Alanine and Proline) are referred as ‘medium-tasters’ and allele homozygote to Proline (PP) are referred as ‘supertasters’ individuals to bitter [9,32]. Thus, it seems that medium and supertasters individuals can be more taste sensitive to the high diversity of substances and, therefore, more prone to decrease sugar intake in detriment to different flavours when are compared with individuals considered ‘nontasters’ [9,32]. Therefore, a gradual intensity of phenotype change is expected, since ‘supertasters’ homozygote to mutant allele should present the less sugar intake and, consequently, a decrease of dental caries experience. In this study, the genotype CG of SNP rs713598 showed an odds 75% lower of presenting dental caries. Genotype GG of the same SNP presented a borderline result (OR 0.17 [0.03–1.04]), revealing a tendency of protection against dental caries, although it was not statistically significant. The lack of significance for the CC homozygote can be explained due to elevate heterogenicity between the methodological approaches observed in the included studies even as to the significant weight of Shimomura-Kuroki et al. [26] on result observed in the sensibility analysis. Despite the results have presented similar tendencies in both studies, the study of Shimomura-Kuroki et al. [26] was decisive in the final result.