Sugar addicts are everywhere! Unfortunately, none of the wide scale GWAS studies have picked up a taste receptor to have any association with CVD/Diabetes risk. Infact since perception of taste is polygenic, arguably multi-factorial it is possible that the GWAS analysis excluded for such associations on grounds of epistasis.

And then its not just about the tongue either, since lots of recent findings show the importance of taste receptors in the gut and their misregulation associated with diabetes. However it would be interesting to know whether supertasting, sweet likers have altered expression of these taste receptors in the gut as well! You might be interested in the following papers and atricels: To me all of them are super-interesting

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2013/06/03/db13-0581.abstract

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003974

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/38/15069.full.pdf

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110307151909.htm

http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/12/24/new-obesity-approach-emphasizes-taste-receptors-in-gut/49638.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121221123458.htm

Interesting question, in clinical practice almost every diabetic person is a sweet liker.

There are a few markers for sweet liker/disliker sensitivity, but I have not seen any research with diabetes yet.

Sugar addicts are everywhere! Unfortunately, none of the wide scale GWAS studies have picked up a taste receptor to have any association with CVD/Diabetes risk. Infact since perception of taste is polygenic, arguably multi-factorial it is possible that the GWAS analysis excluded for such associations on grounds of epistasis.

And then its not just about the tongue either, since lots of recent findings show the importance of taste receptors in the gut and their misregulation associated with diabetes. However it would be interesting to know whether supertasting, sweet likers have altered expression of these taste receptors in the gut as well! You might be interested in the following papers and atricels: To me all of them are super-interesting

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2013/06/03/db13-0581.abstract

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003974

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/38/15069.full.pdf

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110307151909.htm

http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/12/24/new-obesity-approach-emphasizes-taste-receptors-in-gut/49638.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121221123458.htm

Thanks for your response,guys...these days, more and more researches have been conducted on sweet taste and sugar consumption. However, taste is polygenic and many factors can be a reason before we take taste into consideration. Variation in taste alone make some research complicated i.e aging, culture, drugs,so on.

All I can tell you is that sweet liking (as a trait) and PROP tasting are independent, although the latter does have an impact on sweet perception and consequently preference. Anyway, see:

Yeomans, M.R., Prescott, J. & Gould, N.G. (2009) Acquired hedonic and sensory characteristics of odours: Influence of sweet liker and propylthiouracil taster status. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(8), 1648-1664.

(http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/148519_731193550_908325104.pdf)