No Sweet Tooth for Europe

ScienceNOW Daily News ^ | 31 July 2009 | Constance Holden

[neverdem]

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Trick or treat? This confection may be more pleasing to some taste buds than it is to others.

Credit: Photos.com

If you take your coffee without sugar or your pancakes without syrup, chances are you've got some European ancestry in your blood. New research reveals that people whose early relatives lived in Europe are more sensitive to sweet tastes than those whose ancestors came from other parts of the world.

Scientists led by Alexey Fushan of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders in Bethesda, Maryland, asked 144 people from various ethnic backgrounds to rank the sweetness of nine solutions ranging from 0% to 4% sugar. The volunteers' sucrose sensitivity turned out to be strongly associated with two variants of a gene called TAS1R3, which plays a major role in encoding the main carbohydrate sweet taste receptor.

Consulting a reference collection of DNA from 1050 people from around the world held by CEPH, the French gene database, the scientists found that most Europeans have both of the sweetness-sensing variants. The variants are less widespread in people from Asia and the Middle East and are least prevalent in Africans, the team reports in the 11 August issue of Current Biology.

Co-author and geneticist Dennis Drayna says the disparity may be evolutionarily significant. "People who study diet and evolution have pointed out most of the high sugar–containing plants like sugarcane are tropical plants," he notes. "So in northerly latitudes, you have to be more sensitive to sugar to find calories." Molecular biologist Stephen Wooding of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas agrees that the difference may be adaptive. But he says the particular adaptation isn't yet clear.

[bert]

For those of you who are challanged gegraphically, here's a southern treat that may not make it to the northern parts. Maple syrup is good but pure Cane Syrup, not molasses or sorghum is a taste treat. It is increasingly hard to find in chain grocery stores but can be ordered from several makers web sites.

[chris_bdba]

Irish/English/German mix here. I drink nothing sweet and really hate anything sweet that isn’t supposed to be sweet. There is nothing more disgusting in the world than a perfectly good cuke being turned into a sweet pickle! ICK!

[jocon307]

Hubby and I are both equally european in descent, both 1/2 second generation american born and both 100% euro, he likes sugar in coffee and I don’t. I don’t really like sweet drinks at all. A good cold soda once in a while that is about it. But I put sugar on cereal and he does not. The kid takes after him in this, as in most things.

[ApplegateRanch]

butter and extra syrup on my pancakes. So much for that theory!

English, Welsh, Scots, French, and German ancestry here: I concur with your analysis.

To paraphrase Monty Python, "Butter, butter, butter, waffles, and butter."

Sweetened whipped cream; syrups; sugar in coffee AND tea; extra thick frostings and icings....

[maryz]

makes them more sensitive to sweetness, meaning that they may use less sugar than someone who doesn’t have this polymorphism

I think you have to distinguish between sensitivity to sweetness and liking sweetness. Personally, I dislike whole wheat bread because it tastes too sweet to me -- well, not nearly sweet enough for dessert, but sweet enough to ruin anything that's not supposed to be dessert! So I think I'm pretty sensitive to sweet. OTOH, when I do want something sweet, it ain't gonna be whole wheat bread. ;-)

[SuzyQue]

I agree with that! And, for me, it should include chocolate.

[colorado tanker]

This would explain why I'd rather have beer and peanuts at night instead of a piece of cake.

[SunkenCiv]

In my family, it’s a last little bit of potato after dessert. :’)