Diet soda affects your taste buds: New study shows that mixing artificial sweeteners inhibits bitter taste receptors

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Researchers from the German Institute of Human Nutrition analyzed the responses of taste receptors to two artificial sweeteners, saccharin and cyclamate, and how those responses varied when the two sweeteners were combined. 

Saccharin and cyclamate were the first two artificial sweeteners to be combined, and it was discovered over sixty years ago that together they were ‘superior to single compounds.’ But no one has known why until now. 

The team of German researchers, led by Dr Maik Behrens, identified which bitter and sweet taste receptors each sweetener activated. 

They found that saccharin suppresses one of the bitter receptors activated by cyclamate, and cyclamate suppresses two receptors activated by saccharin.

When you ingest the combination, some of your 25 bitter taste receptors are effectively being switched off momentarily (though ‘it’s definitely over a few seconds after you taste it,’ Behrens says).

The two sweeteners in the experiment are some of the oldest sugar-substitutes still in use. They’re also some of the most controversial. 

In fact, while it’s legal in Germany, cyclamate is currently banned in the United States. Studies in the 1960s showed that the combination of cylamate and saccharin caused cancer in rats. Though there are no conclusive findings that the combination has the same effect on humans, the FDA has not approved it for use. 

Saccharin is still used here, but, more importantly, Behrens says that his team’s method can be used to work out what receptors are activated and suppressed by other combinations of artificial sweeteners and other flavors. 

‘If we consider that we usually eat much more complex compounds than these, we can [come to] better understand how we taste,’ using this method he says. 

This new knowledge could help the food industry to come up with more natural tasting alternatives to sugar. 

Combinations of artificial sweeteners do not taste more intensely sweet together than they would individually, even though they have ‘maximal sweetness.’ 

In the course of the experiment Behrens and his team found that taste receptors on the tongue are not responsible for this phenomenon, and speculate that ‘information mixing in the brain,’ may be the cause. 

6cf60355215133e451d0033b041501e4 Diet soda affects your taste buds: New study shows that mixing artificial sweeteners inhibits bitter taste receptors

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