Description:
1 INTRODUCTION
The prevalence of diabetes mellitus has dramatically increased over the world in the recent past. A cross-sectional study conducted between 2005 and 2006 has confirmed that one in five adults in Sri Lanka has either diabetes or pre-diabetes (Katulanda, et al., 2008).
The sense of taste is an important chemical sense that play a critical role in human life. Sweet taste is the most pleasurable taste amongst the other tastes namely, sour, salt, bitter and umami. Consumption of sugar exceeding the healthy limits may disrupt the glycaemic control in patients with diabetes, causing an impairment of sweet taste perception (Green, 2010).A recent study has confirmed that ability to detect sweet taste is impaired in diabetes and it is proven that there is an alteration in the preference for sucrose amongst the diabetics (Yu, et al., 2014).However, the impact of gender and age on taste perception for sucrose in diabetics has not been reported before.
Perception of taste (i.e. Supra-threshold sensitivity and preference) refers to a sensitivity that results from stimulation of gustatory nerves with different intensities, through a chemical sensing system.
Identifying the taste perception for sucrose in diabetics of different age and gender categories might provide useful information when recommending dietary adjustments. In a recent study we have confirmed that diabetics irrespective of the age and gender have significantly lower ratings for supra-threshold concentrations of sucrose when compared to normoglycemic controls (Wasalathanthri et al., 2014). However, factors which contribute for this have not been uncovered fully. Thus, the aim of the current study is to assess the supra-threshold intensity ratings and preference for sucrose in patients with type II diabetes mellitus and to assess how the gender and age affects the taste perception for sucrose in them.