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Peflod
Sweet is relative, taste bud researcher says
Genetic differences divide humans into 3 categories
By MIKE TONER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/28/06
They're right there on the tip of your tongue - taste buds. Scientists are learning that how many of those little
fungiform papillae you have - and how they work - may playa role in whether you develop cancer, heart disease
or diabetes.
"We live in different taste worlds and how things taste has a lot to do with whether we eat them or not," Yale
University psychologist Linda Bartoshuk told the American Chemical Society Monday in Atlanta.
Although it was once thought that tastes for food were acquired, scientists now know that the world oftaste
divided, partly by genetic differences, into three parts: super-tasters, nontasters, and everyone else.
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Super-tasters have about six times as many taste buds as non tasters, and scientists are beginning to learn how
differences in their perception oftaste, especially offats and sweets, can effect an diet and health.
"Super-tasters experience all tastes two to three times more intensely that the rest of us," says Bartoshuk. "Because
of that intensity, they tend not to like fat, and they don't eat as much of it. They also tend to avoid highly salted
foods. Not surprisingly, they are less likely to be obese and more likely to have lower rates of cardiovascular
disease."
Because super-tasters also perceive sweetness more intensely, they are less likely to crave highly sweetened food
and beverages. Less sugar means fewer calories, less weight, and a reduced risk of diabetes.
Surveys show that chefs tend to be super-tasters. Researchers aren't sure why, but it also appears that women are
more likely to be super-tasters than men. And Asians, African-Americans
and Hispanics are more likely to taste
more intensely than other groups.
But it's not all peaches and sweet cream for people with overactive taste buds. Because they are also super-sensitive
to bitterness, they tend to them shun bitter tasting things that can be good for them, like grapefruit juice, coffee and
green tea.
And the proximity of the tongue's pain receptors to their densely packed taste buds also make them more sensitive to
the chili peppers and hot sauce.
"Super-tasters also tend not to like fruits and vegetables containing flavinoids, compounds which they perceive as
bitter, so they may face higher rates of diet-related cancers," Bartoshuk says. "One study showed that super-tasters
over the age of 65 had higher rates of the kind of polyps that have been linked to colon cancer."
Bartoshuk says less sensitivity to taste doesn't impede someone's ability to enjoy food. She counts herself among the
25 percent of the population classified as a "nontasters" but she says she enjoys the same food most people do.
"We all get pleasure from food," she says. "People like me just taste things less intensely. I never passed up anything
in my life because it was too sweet."
Less sensitive taste perception,
different but still pleasurable.
she contends, is comparable
to seeing the world in subtle pastels, instead of neon-