Abstract
Fat perception during eating is a complex sensation that involves various sensory modalities, such as texture, aroma and taste. Taste is supported by the discovery of fatty acid receptors in the tongue papillae. Dietary fat is mainly composed of esterified fatty acids, whereas only free fatty acids can bind to taste receptors. Some authors have mentioned the necessity and efficiency of salivary lipolytic activity to hydrolyse the esterified fatty acids present in foods and enable fat perception. Our hypothesis is that salivary lipolytic activity is also involved in regulating the basal level of salivary fatty acids in humans. To test this hypothesis, total fatty acid (TFA) and free fatty acid (FFA) concentrations and selected salivary characteristics (such as lipolytic activity) were analysed in the resting saliva of 54 subjects. The results show differences in the TFA and FFA profiles, with TFA and FFA concentrations of 8.99 and 3.56 µg/mL of saliva, respectively. Interestingly, lipolytic activity had a significant positive correlation with FFA concentration (0.51, p < 0.01). This result highlights a possible physiological role of salivary lipolytic activity in the regulation of the basal FFA concentration. This regulation could be involved in fat taste sensitivity.
Highlights
Reducing fat consumption has become a key challenge for modern societies since the high consumption of fatty products has been associated with obesity and its associated pathologies, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes[1, 2]
It is worth mentioning that the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method used for free fatty acids (FFA) profile determination does not allow classification of the unsaturated fatty acids based on the position of the unsaturated bond, contrarily to the gas chromatography – flame ionization detection (GC-FID) method used for total fatty acids (TFA) determination
Protein concentration is positively correlated with lipolytic activity as well as TFA and FFA concentrations
Summary
Reducing fat consumption has become a key challenge for modern societies since the high consumption of fatty products has been associated with obesity and its associated pathologies, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes[1, 2]. Our hypothesis is that the salivary lipolytic activity can modulate the salivary free fatty acid concentration and impact perception. No publications to date have reported the concentrations of various fatty acids in their total forms (TFA): non-esterified + esterified (e.g. tri-, di- and mono-glycerides; phospholipids) and free forms (FFA): non-esterified. This lack of publications is probably due, in part, to the very low fatty acid concentrations in saliva. The second aim was to study the relationships between FFA, TFA and other salivary characteristics that may affect the fatty acid profiles in saliva, lipolytic activity
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