The Taste Gene

Reported May 2005

PHILADELPHIA (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- If you're a parent, chances are you've had a difficult time getting your child to eat certain veggies. The next time your child pushes away his spinach, it may not be that he’s being difficult or picky. A new study finds some children may be extra sensitive to bitter tastes.

Abby Plummer is part of a tasting study that looks at the effect of a bitter-taste receptor gene on food preferences.

"We genotyped children and mothers -- and by genotyping, I mean we took cheek swabs and got DNA from mothers and children -- and looked for the presence of this bitter taste receptor gene," says Julie Mennella, Ph.D., a developmental Psychobiologist at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

Psycho-biologists, who combine psychology and biology, grouped the 143 children and their mothers into three genotypes: PP, AP or AA. The P signifies the presence of the bitter gene. As expected, those with two bitter genes, PP, were the most sensitive to bitter taste. However, mothers and children with the same genotypes did not have the same taste experience.

Dr. Mennella says, "An interesting thing is that children who carried one of these bitter taste alleles were much more sensitive to the bitter taste than mothers."

Which could be why many children have an aversion to bitter foods like certain vegetables. "Childhood may represent a period of heightened bitter taste sensitivity in some children that lessens with age. That's not to say that as you get older you can't taste bitter anymore, it's just a dampening effect," Dr. Mennella says. She hopes her research leads to healthier diets for kids.

The study also found children who had the bitter taste gene preferred higher levels of the sucrose solution they were given in the study. Researchers point out that as we age, life experience begins to override genetic disposition for taste.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Julie Mennella, Ph.D.
Monell Chemical Senses Center
3500 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308
(215) 898-9230
mennella@monell.org
http://www.monell.org


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