Abstract
Consumption of coffee, tea and alcohol might be shaped by individual differences in bitter taste perception but inconsistent observational findings provide little insight regarding causality. We conducted Mendelian randomization analyses using genetic variants associated with the perception of bitter substances (rs1726866 for propylthiouracil [PROP], rs10772420 for quinine and rs2597979 for caffeine) to evaluate the intake of coffee, tea and alcohol among up to 438,870 UK Biobank participants. A standard deviation (SD) higher in genetically predicted bitterness of caffeine was associated with increased coffee intake (0.146 [95%CI: 0.103, 0.189] cups/day), whereas a SD higher in those of PROP and quinine was associated with decreased coffee intake (−0.021 [−0.031, −0.011] and −0.081 [−0.108, −0.054] cups/day respectively). Higher caffeine perception was also associated with increased risk of being a heavy (>4 cups/day) coffee drinker (OR 1.207 [1.126, 1.294]). Opposite pattern of associations was observed for tea possibly due to the inverse relationship between both beverages. Alcohol intake was only negatively associated with PROP perception (−0.141 [−1.88, −0.94] times/month per SD increase in PROP bitterness). Our results reveal that bitter perception is causally associated with intake of coffee, tea and alcohol, suggesting a role of bitter taste in the development of bitter beverage consumption.
Highlights
Coffee, tea and alcohol are widely consumed beverages with bitter taste[1] and have been implicated in both beneficial and adverse health effects[2,3]
Higher perception of caffeine is causally associated with increased risk of being a heavy coffee drinker (Causal OR = 1.207; 95% CI: 1.126, 1.294), see Fig. 1b), with similar evidence for association with higher cups per day, but higher perception of PROP and quinine results in lower coffee consumption
We investigated the effect of perception of different bitter compounds on tea, coffee and alcohol consumption in a large population-based cohort (UK Biobank) using a Mendelian randomization (MR) approach
Summary
Tea and alcohol are widely consumed beverages with bitter taste[1] and have been implicated in both beneficial and adverse health effects[2,3]. Potential confounders or illnesses that both affect taste perception and consumption in these studies limits their ability to provide unbiased causal effects. These issues can be overcome by recent advances in taste genetics and statistical methodology. Have pinpointed precise genetic factors[25,26,27], including SNPs within the bitter taste receptor gene TAS2R38 for PROP and SNPs within the cluster of bitter taste receptors genes on chromosome 12 for quinine and caffeine Identification of these genetic variants provides an opportunity to apply Mendelian randomization (MR), a technique commonly used in disease epidemiology, to test the causal relationship between bitter taste and an outcome of interest using genetic variants (e.g. SNPs) as instrumental variables (IVs). We use confirmed genetic markers for the perception of PROP (rs1726866), quinine (rs10772420) and caffeine (rs2597979) separately as genetic proxies for bitter taste perception and test their associations with the consumption of coffee, tea and alcohol among more than 400,000 participants in the UK Biobank cohort[33]
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