A Common Genetic Influence on Human Intensity Ratings of Sugars and High-Potency Sweeteners

Hwang, Liang-Dar; Zhu, Gu; Breslin, Paul A.S.; Reed, Danielle R.; Martin, Nicholas G.; Wright, Margaret J.

doi:10.1017/thg.2015.42

Cited by 59 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…A recent study of 1,901 adolescent and young adult twins found that a common genetic factor accounted for 30% of the overall variance in their sensitivity to the sweet taste of two monosaccharides (glucose, fructose) and two nonnutritive sweeteners (neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, aspartame) [39]. While this twin study did not determine whether the common factor was the sweet taste receptor gene, other datareveal that (a) variation in the TAS1R3 subunit of the sweet taste receptor gene and (b) variation in the GNAT3 gene that encodes for the intracellular sweet transduction protein are related to sucrose detection thresholds (defined as the lowest concentration of a stimulus needed by a subject to detect its presence relative to water).…”

Section: The Biology Of Sweet Tastementioning

confidence: 99%

The development of sweet taste: From biology to hedonics

Mennella

Bobowski

Reed

2016

Rev Endocr Metab Disord

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148

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From the age of two years, an American child is more likely to consume a sugar-sweetened product than a fruit or vegetable on any given day—a troubling statistic, given that food preferences are established early in childhood, as well as the strong association between this dietary pattern and increased risk of developing a number of chronic diseases. Here, we review the ontogeny and biopsychology of sweet taste, highlighting how a biological drive to prefer sweetness at high concentrations during childhood, which would have conferred an advantage in environments of scarcity, now predisposes children to overconsume all that is sweet in a modern food system replete with added sugars. We review the power of sweet taste to blunt expressions of pain and mask bad tastes in foods as well as factors that predispose some to consume high-sugar diets, including experiential learning and taste preferences driven in part by genetics. Understanding children’s unique vulnerability to our current food environment, rich in both nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners, is highlighted as a priority for future research to develop evidence-based strategies to help establish healthy dietary behaviors early in life.

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Section: The Biology Of Sweet Tastementioning

confidence: 99%

The development of sweet taste: From biology to hedonics

Mennella

Bobowski

Reed

2016

Rev Endocr Metab Disord

Self Cite

148

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“…The mean intensity ratings from the duplicate presentations were used in this study. As our previous study showed that a common genetic component accounted for most of the variance in intensity scores of each sweetener (71% for glucose, 77% for fructose, 64% for NHDC, and 59% for aspartame; Hwang et al, 2015), here we calculated a general sweet intensity rating (gSweet) using the weighted mean of intensity ratings of the four sweeteners. Intensity scores were square-root transformed to approximate the normal distribution.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Sweet Taste Perception is Associated with Body Mass Index at the Phenotypic and Genotypic Level

et al. 2016

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Investigations on the relationship between sweet taste perception and body mass index (BMI) have been inconclusive. Here, we report a longitudinal analysis using a genetically informative sample of 1,576 adolescent Australian twins to explore the relationship between BMI and sweet taste. First, we estimated the phenotypic correlations between perception scores for four different sweet compounds (glucose, fructose, neohesperidine dihydrochalcone (NHDC), and aspartame) and BMI. Then, we computed the association between adolescent taste perception and BMI in early adulthood (reported 9 years later). Finally, we used twin modeling and polygenic risk prediction analysis to investigate the genetic overlap between BMI and sweet taste perception. Our findings revealed that BMI in early adulthood was significantly associated with each of the sweet perception scores, with the strongest correlation observed in aspartame with r = 0.09 (p = .007). However, only limited evidence of association was observed between sweet taste perception and BMI that was measured at the same time (in adolescence), with the strongest evidence of association observed for glucose with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.06 (p = .029) and for aspartame with r = 0.06 (p = .035). We found a significant (p < .05) genetic correlation between glucose and NHDC perception and BMI. Our analyses suggest that sweet taste perception in adolescence can be a potential indicator of BMI in early adulthood. This association is further supported by evidence of genetic overlap between the traits, suggesting that some BMI genes may be acting through biological pathways of taste perception.

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“…The 19Up study complements and extends earlier BLTS and BATS studies of mental health and well being in adolescence ( Figure 1) [51, [81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89] by providing a detailed assessment of mental health and substance use, and misuse from early teenage years through to young adulthood. The study was organised for the purpose of collecting lifetime diagnoses of substance misuse and common affective disorders, but also includes a range of behavioural and non clinical assessments, as well as updates on phenotypes previously collected in the BLTS (Figure 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Breaking down the genetics of depression using brain endophenotypes

Couvy‐Duchesne¹

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The Queensland Brain Institute 2 Thesis AbstractThe objective of the work presented in this thesis was to extend our understanding of depression aetiology and to identify brain MRI endophenotypes of depression. Our work builds on previous research that highlighted the genetic relationships between stress, sex and depression. In addition, MRI measurements are heritable and do not relying on selfreport. As such, they represent promising endophenotypes that could help break down further the genetics of depression.Preliminary work involved reporting depression prevalence in a young adult Australian twin sample (N=2,773) as well as comorbidity with affective and substance use disorders (Chapter 1). In addition, we demonstrated the good psychometric properties of the SPHERE questionnaire, which provides self-reported measures of anxiety-depression and chronic fatigue. Properties of the scores include: i) stochastic ordering on the sum score, ii) limited sex and age bias through adolescence, iii) high internal consistency, iv) good 3 months test-retest, v) moderate heritability, vi) significant association with lifetime MDD, social anxiety and alcohol dependence diagnoses (Chapter 2).In an older sample of Australian twins (N=5,221, Chapter 3), we performed a direct test of the diathesis-stress hypothesis in depression, which states that stressors can mediate the effect of genetic predisposition (diathesis) on the disease risk. We used Polygenic Risk Scores as a measure of diathesis and report a significant interaction with personal stressful life events, supporting the idea that stress and predisposition have a multiplicative effect on the depression liability scale. This interaction may be different between sexes as suggested by the stratified analysis.We then performed 3 analyses of resting-state fMRI from which we showed that: 1) Head motion (HM) is reliable and heritable in addition to being a major confound in fMRI analyses. However, this is unlikely to greatly confound twin studies of resting-state functional connectivity (FC). As a by-product of the analysis we showed that FC in the Broca's areas networks exhibited low to moderate test-retest and heritability (Chapter 4).2) HM is phenotypically and genetically associated with ADHD scores of Inattention and Hyperactivity/Impulsivity. This leads to most head motion image processing options to reduce power and/or to induce a sampling bias in RS-fMRI studies of ADHD. We discussed ways of circumventing this problem, via volume pruning or multivariate analysis (Chapter 5). 33) Nuisance regression (global signal regression, CompCor and HM regression) options in RS-fMRI processing have a moderate impact on the test-retest of regional homogeneity. Independently of the processing options, the low to moderate intra-class coefficients estimated in our sample may be due to insufficient scanning time (5mins 20s) and would impair our statistical power to detect RS-fMRI endophenotypes of depression (Chapter 6).Rather, we focused on structural brain images and contributed sample...

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A Common Genetic Influence on Human Intensity Ratings of Sugars and High-Potency Sweeteners

Cited by 59 publications

References 35 publications

The development of sweet taste: From biology to hedonics

The development of sweet taste: From biology to hedonics

Sweet Taste Perception is Associated with Body Mass Index at the Phenotypic and Genotypic Level

Breaking down the genetics of depression using brain endophenotypes

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