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Why do sugars taste good?
Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308.
The preference humans and animals show for sweet solutions has been the subject of hundreds of publications. Nevertheless, the evolutionary origin of sweet preference remains enigmatic because of the relatively low nutritional value of sugars and the absence of specific tastes for other, more essential, nutrients. Moderate concentrations of sugars are found in most plant foods because sugars play an important role in plant physiology. Widespread occurrence of sugars in plants is paralleled by widespread preference for sugar solutions in mammals. These observations suggest that preference for sugars evolved because they are common in plants and easy to detect rather than because of any special nutritional merits they offer. Perception of sweetness cannot be used to accurately meter the metabolizable energy or nutritive value of a food.
PMID: 2348939 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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Cited by 2 PubMed Central articles
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Allelic variation of the Tas1r3 taste receptor gene selectively affects taste responses to sweeteners: evidence from 129.B6-Tas1r3 congenic mice.
Inoue M, Glendinning JI, Theodorides ML, Harkness S, Li X, Bosak N, Beauchamp GK, Bachmanov AA.
Physiol Genomics. 2007 Dec 19; 32(1):82-94. Epub 2007 Oct 2.
[Physiol Genomics. 2007]
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Reduction of pain response in premature infants using intraoral sucrose.
Ramenghi LA, Wood CM, Griffith GC, Levene MI.
Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 1996 Mar; 74(2):F126-8.
[Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 1996]