The Bitter End

 

Richard J B Willis

BUC Health Ministries Director

 

 

 

Have you ever sunk your teeth into something appetising anticipating the delicious response only to find that your teeth are set on edge, your hair curls and your skin breaks out in 'goose-flesh'? The taste is unexpectedly bitter.

 

An American biotech company is rushing to your aid. The New York based Linguagen scientists have developed an additive that can mask the bitter taste of a variety of substances. Normally when we taste something bitter such as the compound naringin found in caffeine, grapefruit and some painkillers the taste receptors of the mouth produce a protein, called gustducin, which triggers a more complex series of reactions culminating in nerve impulses to the brain where we are made conscious of the bitterness of the item.

 

The researchers have found a way to switch off the initial production of gustducin so that foods, drinks and medicines need no longer be perceived as bitter. They are hoping to extend the technology to help consumers avoid the effects of sugars, salts and fats, so reducing the unhealthy conditions associated with excess use of these food components.

 

It seems that adding the bitter blockers will not affect our ability to detect food that is sour or going off as the mechanism for detecting these use a different reaction circuit to the brain. Food scientists are optimistic that foods that children traditionally have aversion to such as cabbage and spinach might be debitterised and have increased acceptability.

 

Blocking bitter taste will also have clinical uses as drugs from simple painkillers to those used to control HIV will be made more palatable and increase the likelihood of people sticking to their prescriptions. Patents have been granted to further develop the range or 'family' of blockers discovered. Only tiny amounts of the blockers are required to have the desired effect. Currently a major food group and a leading pharmaceutical company are testing the blockers across a wide range of products. Independent research has confirmed that the science behind the innovation is good.

 

So for the future, we won't need a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down and hopefully parents will not have to have meal-time tantrums over beneficial but ill-liked foods. If the blockers are used widely we won't have any bitter regrets!

 

 

 

© The Stanborough Press