Short sleep duration increases preferences for high-carbohydrate and high-fat foods. It is unclear if insufficient sleep-induced changes in food preference are mediated by changes in taste perception and if these changes are related to sweetener type (sucrose or sucralose) or sweet liking phenotype. The primary objective of this study was to determine if sleep curtailment results in changes in sweet taste perception after sleep curtailment. Forty participants used a single-channel electroencephalograph to record both a habitual and curtailed night (33% reduction) of sleep at home. The following morning, multiple dimensions of sweet taste perception were measured, including preferred sweetener concentrations, patterns of sweet liking, and intensity perception over a range of concentrations. After curtailment, a significant increase in preferred concentration for both sucrose and sucralose (p < 0.001 for both) was observed. The slope of sucrose sweet liking increased after curtailment (p = 0.001). The slope of sucralose liking also increased, but this was not significant (p = 0.129). Intensity perception of the sweeteners was not altered by curtailment. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to classify participants by sweet liking phenotype. Phenotypes were found to predict preferred sweetener concentration. These findings illustrate a possible need to control for sleep in food sensory studies and suggest a potential mechanism by which insufficient sleep can lead to excess energy intake.
Little is known about the relationship between sleep and chemosensation. The purpose of this study was to characterize the relationship between chemosensory function and sleep duration, quality, and architecture. A total of 56 nonobese (body mass index <30 kg/m2) female participants who denied having diagnosed sleep disorders completed testing. Sleep was measured for two nights using a single-channel (A1-A2) electroencephalogram (Zmachine). Sweet taste threshold and preference as well as olfactory threshold, recognition ability, and pleasantness ratings were evaluated. Sweet taste preference was correlated with total sleep time (TST) (P = 0.0074) as well as with the sum of rapid eye movement (REM) and stage N3/slow wave sleep (SWS) duration (P = 0.0008). Participants who slept more than the average TST or more than the average REM + SWS time preferred lower concentrations of sweetness (P = 0.041 and 0.049, respectively), than those whose sleep times fell below the means. Multiple linear regression revealed that REM and SWS predicted ~18% of the variance of sweet taste preference. These findings suggest that scientific and consumer studies related to sweet preference might benefit from screening participants for short sleep duration prior to testing.
It is currently unclear whether changes in sweet taste perception of model systems after sleep curtailment extend to complex food matrices. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to use a novel solid oat-based food (crisps) and oat-based beverage stimulus sweetened with sucralose to assess changes in taste perception after sleep curtailment. Forty-one participants recorded a habitual and curtailed night of sleep using a single-channel electroencephalograph. The next morning, overall sweetness, flavor, and texture liking responses to energy- and nutrient-matched oat products across five concentrations of sweetness were measured. Overall (p = 0.047) and flavor (p = 0.017) liking slopes across measured concentrations were steeper after curtailment, suggesting that sweeter versions of the oat products were liked more after sleep curtailment. Additionally, a hierarchical cluster analysis was used to classify sweet likers and non-likers. While the effect of sleep curtailment on sweet liking did not differ between sweet liking classification categories, sleep curtailment resulted in decreased texture liking in the solid oat crisps for sweet non-likers (p < 0.001), but not in the oat beverage. These findings illustrate the varied effects of sleep on hedonic response in complex food matrices and possible mechanisms by which insufficient sleep can lead to sensory-moderated increases in energy intake.
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