Chemosensory Influences on Eating and Drinking, and Their Cognitive Mediation
Alan R. Hirsch in Nutrition and Sensation, 2023
The error of equating preference with pleasure has been compounded by the verbal similarity between the word pleasure and the word used in a common measure of preference or appetite (and satiety) for an item—its rated pleasantness (Booth, Mather, and Fuller 1982; Rolls, Rowe, Rolls, Kingston, Megson, and Gunary 1981). A whole theory of the biological roles of pleasure has been built on ratings of the pleasantness of gustatory and thermal stimuli (Cabanac 1971, 1979). Any desired activity is a pleasant prospect. Yet, even when bodily sensations such as taste (or texture) are involved in the activity, as with eating and drinking, those conscious experiences need not be sensually pleasurable (Booth 1991). Recently, at last, the preference for a food and pleasure from the food have been dissociated experimentally (Booth, Higgs, Schneider, and Klinkenberg 2010). It seems that revoltingly strong sweetness can activate some of the innate reflex to sweetness, so that the taster feels the characteristic movements in the mouth. Furthermore, in an adult such feelings can be pleasurable, raising mood and even creating a sense of smiling (Booth, Higgs, Schneider, and Klinkenberg 2010). Further careful cognitive and electromyographic investigation is needed to determine if some of the muscles that can be recruited by intense sweetness are the same as some of the muscles involved in a smile, and whether the pleasure comes from actual or incipient contractions or directly from the taste of sweetness.
Sweeteners
Christopher Cumo in Ancestral Diets and Nutrition, 2020
Demand for sugars has a biological component because the mouth’s roughly 10,000 taste buds—spread among the tongue, palate, cheek, esophagus, and epiglottis—detect sweetness.32 In response to sucrose and other sugars, taste buds send neurotransmitters to the brain, which increases appetite. A hearty appetite must have benefited humans during all but recent history by enlarging the intake of calories and nutrients. Spurts of gluttony helped people survive the food scarcity that prevailed most of the time. Moreover, the craving for sweetness prodded newborns to nurse in order to ingest mother’s milk, rich in the sugar lactose (C12H22O11), which Chapters 2 and 7 described.33 Newborns and infants who gained mass stood better odds of survival upon weaning, when food became scant, than runts. American economist, historian, and 1993 Nobel laureate in economics Robert William Fogel (1926–2013) reported that mortality was higher for underweight than average infants among Trinidad and U.S. slaves.34 Avoidance of underweight—which Fogel equated with shortness absent data for mass—helped slaves in Trinidad and the American South reach adulthood.
Carbohydrates
Geoffrey P. Webb in Nutrition, 2019
These compounds are mostly sugar alcohols like xylitol and sorbitol that yield fewer calories than sugar because they are incompletely absorbed or metabolised; they typically yield 40–60% of the energy of an equivalent weight of sucrose. They can be used in similar amounts to sugar in some food products and they add not just sweetness but also the textural and mouthfeel properties of sugar. They may be used in combination with intense artificial sweeteners to boost their sweetness and reduce the amount that is needed. These sugar replacers do not promote dental caries and because they are only slowly and partially absorbed, they do not cause the same large rises in blood glucose and insulin that sugar does, which may be particularly useful for diabetics. However, if they are eaten in large amounts, then because of their limited absorption, large amounts of them may enter the large bowel. This can have an osmotic effect and increase bacterial fermentation leading to diarrhoea and flatulence and so they are not used to sweeten soft drinks.
Effect of Midmorning Puree Snacks on Subjective Appetite, Food Intake, and Glycemic and Insulin Responses in Healthy Adults
Published in Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2018
Qing Guo, Julia Totosy de Zepetnek, Jennifer Chang, Julia Hayden, Stephen J. Crozier, Gagan Mongia, Dérick Rousseau, Nick Bellissimo
A motivation-to-eat VAS used to measure subjective appetite was composed of four questions: (1) How strong is your desire to eat? (“very weak” to “very strong”), (2) How hungry do you feel? (“not hungry at all” to “as hungry as I've ever felt”), (3) How full do you feel? (“not full at all” to “very full”), and (4) How much food do you think you can eat? (“nothing at all” to “a large amount”) (34). Each VAS consisted of a 100-mm line fixed between the opposing statements for each question. The participants' marked an “X” on the line to indicate their feelings at that given moment. Scores were determined by measuring the distance (in mm) from the left starting point of the line to the intersection of the “X.” Average appetite was calculated as follows: [desire to eat + hunger + (100 – fullness) + prospective food consumption] / 4 (34–36). Pleasantness and sweetness VAS were administered immediately after puree consumption. Pleasantness of the purees or pizza lunch was assessed by the question, “How pleasant have you found the puree or lunch?” (“not pleasant at all” to “very pleasant”) (34,36,37). Sweetness of the puree was assessed by the question, “How sweet have you found the puree?” (“not sweet at all” to “extremely sweet”) (36).
Effect of xylitol tablets with and without red propolis on salivary parameters, dental biofilm and sensory acceptability of adolescents: a randomized crossover clinical trial
Published in Biofouling, 2020
Mariana Leonel Martins, Amanda Souza Nunes Monteiro, Thiago Isidro Vieira, Maria Bárbara de Carvalho Torres Guimarães, Letícia Coli Louvisse de Abreu, Lucio Mendes Cabral, Yuri Wanderley Cavalcanti, Lucianne Cople Maia, Andréa Fonseca-Gonçalves
The challenge of maintaining oral health has resulted in an increasing number of scientific studies that suggest the use of natural products in dentistry, such as xylitol and propolis (Bueno-Silva et al. 2017; Cardoso et al. 2016; Freires and Rosalen 2016; Martins et al. 2018; Martins et al. 2019; Martins et al. 2019). Xylitol is among the substances that have been used as a preventive method for dental caries. It is a sugar alcohol, nutritive, non-fermentable, found in several fruits and vegetables, and reaches the same sweetness as sucrose. Due to these characteristics, this sugar has been used as a substitute for sucrose in many products and in a wide variety of preparations, such as chewing gums, syrups, lozenges or tablets, sprays, mouthwashes, gels, pastes, sweets, and varnishes (Riley et al. 2015). The use of chewing gums and lozenges containing xylitol, for example, can induce a decrease in the formation of dental biofilm, facilitates the return of pH to values close to neutral, favors salivary buffer by changing the phosphate composition in the oral environment, and induces an increase in salivary flow through the act of chewing and gustatory stimulation (Antonio et al. 2011).
Feasibility of developing hospital preparation by semisolid extrusion 3D printing: personalized amlodipine besylate chewable tablets
Published in Pharmaceutical Development and Technology, 2022
Xiaolu Han, Dongzhou Kang, Boshi Liu, Hui Zhang, Zengming Wang, Xiang Gao, Aiping Zheng
From the bitterness-masking test, we can see that API can cause responses to the sourness, saltiness, B-bitterness, H-bitterness, and astringency taste sensors. As shown in Figure 7(a), when comparing the API with the F12, the differences between the two were mainly in sourness, umami, sweetness, and B-bitterness. It can be seen that the addition of excipients had a certain effect on H-bitterness. A comparison of the bitterness-masking of the API with other formulations is shown in Figure 7(b). The bitterness of API was the strongest, and the others were obviously reduced. F16 had the best taste-masking effect, followed by F17. Furthermore, taste evaluation was used to evaluate the taste richness, and all of the taste indices and the main indices of the seven formulations were compiled into a radar chart, as shown in Figure 7(c,d). F16 had the best taste. Its bitterness, astringency, and sourness were the minimum, and its sweetness and umami were the maximum, which reflected the richness of the taste. The results were consistent with the bitterness-masking test. In conclusion, 0.1% sucralose and 0.05% lemon essence are the most appropriate amounts for AMB chewable tablets.
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