Abstract
ABSTRACTSweet taste plays a critical role in determining food preferences and choices. Similar to what happens for other oral sensations, individuals differ in their sensitivity for sweet taste and these inter-individual differences may be responsible for variations in food acceptance. Despite evidence that saliva plays a role in taste perception, this fluid has been mainly studied in the context of bitterness or astringency. We investigated the possible relationship between sweet taste sensitivity and salivary composition in subjects with different sucrose detection thresholds. Saliva collected from 159 young adults was evaluated for pH, total protein concentration and glucose. One- and bi-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) were performed and protein profiles compared between sweet sensitivity groups, with proteins that were differently expressed being identified by MALDI-FTICR-MS. Moreover, Western blotting was performed for salivary carbonic anhydrase VI (CA-VI) and cystatins and salivary amylase enzymatic activity was assessed in order to compare groups. Females with low sensitivity to sweet taste had higher salivary concentrations of glucose compared to those with sensitivity. For protein profiles, some differences were sex-dependent, with higher levels of α-amylase and CA-VI in low-sensitivity individuals and higher levels of cystatins in sensitive ones for both sexes. Body mass index was not observed to affect the association between salivary proteome and taste sensitivity. To our knowledge, these are the first data showing an association between sweet taste and saliva proteome.
Highlights
Sweet taste is associated with innate acceptance and preference for foods, functioning as a way of signalling energetic nutrients, namely carbohydrates [1]
The preference for sweet and high-fat foods is frequently reported as being associated with obesity development: obese people appear to have higher preferences for sweet and fat foods and their positive response to fat becomes even greater when sweetness is added to fatty foods [2]; different authors refer to the association between sweet taste perception and body weight [3,4], with sweet detection/recognition thresholds being reported as significantly lower in morbidly obese adolescents [5]
The Chi-square test showed no differences between sexes in the proportion of individuals belonging to each sweet taste sensitivity group
Summary
Sweet taste is associated with innate acceptance and preference for foods, functioning as a way of signalling energetic nutrients, namely carbohydrates [1]. One possible explanation for this is the assumption, by different authors, that results obtained with the bitter compounds phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) and 6-n-propylthiouracyl (PROP) could be extrapolated to other tastes, since responsiveness to these compounds has been widely accepted as a ‘marker’ of sensitivity for tastes and oral sensations in general [12]. Such a relationship is questionable [13] and only a weak link between PROP taste sensitivity and sweet perception has been observed [14]
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