Individual Sweet Taste Perception Influences Salivary Characteristics After Orosensory Stimulation With Sucrose and Noncaloric Sweeteners

Corinna M Karl; Ana Vidakovic; Petra Pjevac; Bela Hausmann; Gerhard Schleining; Jakob P Ley; David Berry; Joachim Hans; Martin Wendelin; Jürgen König; Veronika Somoza; Barbara Lieder

doi:10.3389/fnut.2022.831726

Individual Sweet Taste Perception Influences Salivary Characteristics After Orosensory Stimulation With Sucrose and Noncaloric Sweeteners

Front Nutr. 2022 May 25:9:831726. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.831726. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Corinna M Karl^{1

2}, Ana Vidakovic¹, Petra Pjevac^{3

4}, Bela Hausmann^{3

5}, Gerhard Schleining⁶, Jakob P Ley⁷, David Berry^{3

4}, Joachim Hans⁷, Martin Wendelin⁸, Jürgen König⁹, Veronika Somoza^{2

10

11}, Barbara Lieder^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Christian Doppler Laboratory for Taste Research, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
² Department of Physiological Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
³ Joint Microbiome Facility of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
⁴ Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, Division of Microbial Ecology, Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
⁵ Department of Laboratory Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
⁶ Institute of Food Science, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
⁷ Symrise AG, Holzminden, Germany.
⁸ Symrise Distribution GmbH, Vienna, Austria.
⁹ Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
¹⁰ Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.
¹¹ Chair of Nutritional Systems Biology, School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.

Abstract

Emerging evidence points to a major role of salivary flow and viscoelastic properties in taste perception and mouthfeel. It has been proposed that sweet-tasting compounds influence salivary characteristics. However, whether perceived differences in the sensory properties of structurally diverse sweet-tasting compounds contribute to salivary flow and saliva viscoelasticity as part of mouthfeel and overall sweet taste perception remains to be clarified. In this study, we hypothesized that the sensory diversity of sweeteners would differentially change salivary characteristics in response to oral sweet taste stimulation. Therefore, we investigated salivary flow and saliva viscoelasticity from 21 healthy test subjects after orosensory stimulation with sucrose, rebaudioside M (RebM), sucralose, and neohesperidin dihydrochalcone (NHDC) in a crossover design and considered the basal level of selected influencing factors, including the basal oral microbiome. All test compounds enhanced the salivary flow rate by up to 1.51 ± 0.12 g/min for RebM compared to 1.10 ± 0.09 g/min for water within the 1st min after stimulation. The increase in flow rate was moderately correlated with the individually perceived sweet taste (r = 0.3, p < 0.01) but did not differ between the test compounds. The complex viscosity of saliva was not affected by the test compounds, but the analysis of covariance showed that it was associated (p < 0.05) with mucin 5B (Muc5B) concentration. The oral microbiome was of typical composition and diversity but was strongly individual-dependent (permutational analysis of variance (PERMANOVA): R ² = 0.76, p < 0.001) and was not associated with changes in salivary characteristics. In conclusion, this study indicates an impact of individual sweet taste impressions on the flow rate without measurable changes in the complex viscosity of saliva, which may contribute to the overall taste perception and mouthfeel of sweet-tasting compounds.

Keywords: mouthfeel; neohesperidin dihydrochalcone; oral microbiome; rebaudioside M; saliva; sucralose; sucrose; sweet taste.