title: Reproducibility of the measurement of sweet taste preferences.
abstract: Developing interventions to prevent and treat obesity are medical and public health imperatives. Taste is a major determinant of food intake and reliable methods to measure taste preferences need to be established. This study aimed to establish the short-term reproducibility of sweet taste preference measurements using 5-level sucrose concentrations in healthy adult volunteers. We defined sweet taste preference as the geometric mean of the preferred sucrose concentration determined from two series of two-alternative, forced-choice staircase procedures administered 10min apart on a single day. We repeated the same procedures at a second visit 3-7days later. Twenty-six adults (13 men and 13 women, age 33.2±12.2years) completed the measurements. The median number of pairs presented for each series was three (25th and 75th percentiles: 3, 4). The intraclass correlation coefficients between the measurements was 0.82 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.63-0.92) within a few days. This study showed high short-term reproducibility of a simple, 5-level procedure for measuring sweet taste preferences. This method may be useful for assessing sweet taste preferences and the risks resulting from those preferences.
authors.affiliation: The University of Michigan, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes, USA. kasao@med.umich.edu
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Asao
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: William H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Herman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004032:Diet; D019422:Dietary Sucrose; D002149:Energy Intake; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000517:prevention & control; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D013395:Sucrose; D013549:Sweetening Agents; D013649:Taste; D055697:Taste Perception; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D019422:Dietary Sucrose; D013549:Sweetening Agents; D013395:Sucrose