Impaired Taste Acuity in Patients with Diabetes mellitus on Maintenance Hemodialysis

Abstract

Aims: It has been reported that taste acuity for the four primary tastes, sour, sweet, salty and bitter, is impaired in hemodialysis (HD) patients. However, there have been no studies reported on taste acuity of diabetic HD patients. The present study aimed to quantify and compare the taste acuity of diabetic and non-diabetic HD patients, and further to determine if there were correlations between diminished taste acuity and certain blood serum parameters typically askew in hemodialysis patients. Methods: In a test group of 24 diabetic and 24 non-diabetic HD patients matched for age, body mass index and duration of HD, taste acuity for the four tastes was determined by asking patients to identify them at varying concentrations. Results: Statistical analyses indicate that bitter and total taste acuity were significantly impaired in diabetic HD patients. In diabetic HD patients, correlation was found between sweet, salty or total taste acuity and blood urea nitrogen or normalized protein catabolic rate. Conclusions: We conclude that taste acuity is partially impaired in diabetic HD patients, and suggest this contributes to reduced appetite, leading to malnutrition and poor prognoses.

The Relationship Between Oral Health and Diabetes Mellitus

“…Taste disturbances have been reported in patients with diabetes mellitus, 3 but all investigators have not observed this finding. Although patients with diabetes who receive hemodialysis have been reported to have altered taste, 7 it is a complex symptom, and it may be related to salivary flow and changes in food intake associated with disease management. Other neurosensory disorders of the oral and perioral tissues, including burning mouth syndrome and dysphagia, have been reported in patients with diabetes.…”

Taste Disorders in Healthy “Carriers” and “Non‐Carriers” of Candida albicans and in Patients with Candidosis of the Tongue

“…Assessment of taste disorders: In order to quantitatively determine taste disorders, a commercial assay kit, Taste Disk ® (Sanwa Chemicals, Nagoya, Japan), which has been produced based on the report by Tomita et al (10), was used. The test was done according to the procedure recommended by the manufacturer, which has already been reported in many studies examining taste disorders (11)(12)(13)(14)(15). The subjects were required not to eat or smoke for two hours prior to the taste test.…”

Factors associated with taste dissatisfaction in the elderly

“…Moreover, satisfying meals are very important for enhancing quality of life. The decline in taste sensation that occurs in old age is thought to be caused by various factors such as atrophy of taste buds, dental and systemic deterioration, and multiple medications (1–3). Doty and Bromley (1) suggested that medications not only have a perceivable taste themselves at times, but they can alter the mechanisms responsible for the ultimate perception of tastes and smells.…”

“…Bergasa (2) described a hypothesis for a brain‐mediated mechanism underlying taste alterations in hepatic disorders. Matsuo et al (3) concluded that taste acuity is partially impaired in diabetic haemodialysis patients. Nonetheless, the mechanism involved has yet to be elucidated.…”