Taste acuity and composition of saliva in man

Abstract

Ingestion of 10 g glucose (50ml of 20 per cent solution) neither increased the concentration of glucose significantly in saliva nor changed the threshold values of either glucose (sweet) or quinine sulphate (bitter) 30 min after ingestion. Ingestion of 50 g of glucose (250 ml of 20 per cent solution) significantly raised the glucose of saliva but did not alter the threshold values after 30 min or even after 5 min. This suggests that a suprathreshold level of glucose does not influence the threshold of bitter or sweet tastes and establishes that existing threshold procedures, employing successive tastings of increasing concentrations and a short water rinse between each tasting, are adequate in experiments designed to determine taste effects after alterations in composition of saliva.