SEVGİ DURNA DAŞTAN, Yusuf Muhammed DURNA, TANER DAŞTAN

The relationships between phenylthiocarbamide taste perception and smoking, work out habits and susceptibility to depression

Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) is known as phenylthiourea and it is an organic compound that has the phenyl ring. Ability to perceive the tastes of PTC chemical is related to the dominance of taste genes. There are a large number of population studies regarding the PTC taste perception and different personal characteristics or disease conditions. The purpose of this study is to reveal and compare the relation between the PTC taste perception and work-out habits, smoking, alcohol consumption and tendency to the depression of people. A total of 2500 adults were volunteered to be included in this study. PTC taste perception was measured by tasting with PTC solution (10 mg/L) filtered in a paper. It showed that tasters were significantly more frequent (81.8%) than nontasters (18.2%) in all population. And in some parameters analyzed in this study, there are significant differences. The taste genetics show up with environmental factors and create the sense of taste, which develops the feeding behaviors. The taste perception resulting from food and beverages diversifies by genetic and environmental effects and the nervous system interprets this perception. This study is enlightening in terms of presenting that the taste perception of people affects their lifestyles and lead them to start and either continue or discontinue some habits.

PDF

___

Azevedo E, Krieger H, Mi MP, Morton NE. 1965. PTC taste sensitivity and endemic goller in Brazil. Am J of Hum Gen. Vol. 17:1.

Bartoshuk LM, Duffy VB, Miller IJ. 1994. PTC/PROP tasting: anatomy, psychophysics, and sex effects. Physiol & Behav. 56: 11651171.

Bartoshuk LM, Duffy VB, Reed D, Williams A. 1996. Supertasting, earaches and head injury: genetics and pathology alter our taste in worlds. Nuurosci biobehav Rev. 20: 9-87.

Bartoshuk LM. 2000. Psychophysical advances aid the study of genetic variation in taste. Appetite. 34:105.

Blakeslee AF, Fox AL. 1932. Our different taste worlds. J Hered. 23: 97-107.

Brand N. 1963. Taste sensitivity and endemic goitre in Israel. Arın. Hum. Genet. 26: 321-324.

Bufe B, Breslin PAS, Kuhn C, Reed DR, Tharp CD, Slack JP, Kim U, Drayna D, Meyerhof W. 2005. The molecular basis of individual differences in phenylthiocarbamide and propylthiouracil bitterness perception. Curr. Biol. 15: 423-327

Compton MT, Chien VH, Bollini AM, Walker EF. 2007. Lack of support for the inability to taste phenylthiocarbamide as an endophenotypic marker in patients with schizophrenia and their first- degree relatives. Schizophr Res. 95: 65 69.

Demirsoy A. 1998. The Genetics and Evolution Book, 9.th Edition. pp.800.

Dicarlo ST, Powers AS. 1998. Propylthiouracil tasting as a possible genetic association marker for two types of alcoholism. Physiol & Behav. 64: 147-152.

Driscoll KA, Perez M, Cukrowicz KC, Butler M, Joiner TE. 2006. Associations of phenylthiocarbamide tasting to alcohol problems and family history of alcoholism differ by gender. Psychiatry Research. 143: 21-27.

Duffy VB. 2004. Associations between oral sensation, dietary behaviors and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Appetite. 43: 5-9.

Duffy VB, Peterson JM, Bartoshuk LM. 2004. Associations between taste genetics, oral sensation and alcohol intake. Physiol & Behav. 82: 435-445

Enoch ME, Harris CR, Goldman D. 2001. Does a reduced sensitivity to bitter taste increase the risk of becoming nicotine addicted? Addictive Behaviours. 26: 399-404.

Fischer R, Griffın F, England S, Garn SM. 1961. Taste thresholds and food dislikes. Nature. 191: 1328.

Fischer R, Griffin F, Kaplan AR. 1963. Taste thresholds, cigarette smoking, and food dislikes, Medicina experimentalis, Int. J. Exp Clin Med. 9: 151-67.

Fox AL. 1931. Six in ten tasteblind to bitter chemical. Science News Letters. 92:115120.

Guo SW, Shen FM, Zheng CJ, Wang Y. 1998. Treshold distributions of phenylth- iocarbamide (PTC) in the Chinese population. İn: Murphy C, ed. International Symposium on Olfaction and Taste XIX. Ann NY Acad Sci. 855: 810-812.

Guo SW, Reed DR. 2001. The genetics of phenylthiocarbamide perception. Ann. Hum. Biol. 28: 111-142.

Harris H, Kalmus H, Trotter WR. 1949. Taste sensitivity to phenylthiourea in goitre and diabetes. Lancet. 2: 1038-1039.

Harris H, Kalmus H. 1949. Chemical specificity in genetical differences of taste sensitivity. Ann. Eugen. 15: 3245.

Henkin RI, Gillis WT. 1977. Divergent taste responsiveness to fruit of the tree Antidesma bunius, Nature. 265: 536-537.

Hollingsworth DR. 1963. Phenylthiourea taste testing in Hiroshima subjects with thyroid disease. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 23: 961- 963.

Joiner TE, Perez M. 2004. Phenylthiocarbamide tasting and family history of depression, revisited: low rates of depression in families of supertasters. Psychiatry Research. 126: 8387.

Kalmus H, Hubbard SJ. 1960. Chemical senses in health and diseases. Springfield, C.C. Thomas. P. 95-101. Kameswaran L, Gopalakrishnan S, Sukumar M. 1974.

Phenylthiocarbamide and Naringin taste threshold in South Indian medical students. Indian J Pharmacol. 6: 134-140. Kaplan AR, Glanville EV, Fischer R. 1964. Taste thresholds for bitterness and cigarette smoking. Nature. 202:1366.

Kitchin FD, Howels-Evan W, Clarke CA, Mcconnell RB, Sheppard PM. 1959. PTC taste response and thyroid disease. Brit. Med. J. 1: 1069-1074.

Lanier SA, Hayes JE, Duffy VB. 2005. Sweet and bitter tastes of alcoholic beverages mediate alcohol intake in of age undergraduatyes. Physiol & Behav. 83: 821-831.

Mascie-Taylor CGN, McManus IC, MacLarnon AM, Lanigan PM. 1983. The association between phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) tasting ability and psychometric variables. Behav Gen. 13: 191 196.

Moberg, PJ, Roalf DR, Balderston CC, Kanes SJ, Gur RE, Turetsky BI. 2005. Phenylthiocarbamide perception in patients with schizophrenia and first-degree family members. Am. J. Psychiatry. 162: 788-790.

Moberg PJ, McGue C, Kanes SJ, Roalf DR, Balderston CC, Gur RE, Kohler CG, Turetsky BI. 2007. Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) perception in patients with schizophrenia and firstdegree family members: relationship to clinical symptomatology and psychophysical olfactory performance. Schizophr Res. 90: 221-228.

Padmavathi M. 2013. A Study on phenylthiocarbamide tasting in Bagatha Tribes in India. International Research Journal of Biological Sciences. 2: 33-36.

Prescott J. Swain-Campbell N. 2000. Responses to repeated oral irritation by capsaicin, cinnamaldehye and ethanol in PROP tasters and non-tasters. Chem Sense. 25: 239-246.

Prescott J, Soo J, Campbell H, Roberts C. 2004. Responses of PROP taster groups to variations in sensory qualities within foods and beverages. Physiol &Behav. 82:459-469.

Prutkin J, Fisher EM, Etter L, Fast K, Gardner E, Lucchina LA, et al. 2000. Genetic variation and inferences about perceived taste intensity in mice and men. Physiol & Behav. 69:161-73.

Saldhana PH, Becok N. 1959. Taste threshold for phenylthiourea among Askenazich Jews. Science. 129: 150-151.

Saldanha PH. 1962. Taste sensitivity to PTC among Brazilian Negroes and its bearing to the problem of White- Negro intermixture in Brazil. Human Biol. 34: 179-186.

Saraswathi YS, Najafi M, Vineeth VS, Kavitha P, Malini SS. 2011. Association of phenylthiocarbamide taste blindness trait with early onset of childhood obesity in Mysore. Journal of Paramedical Sciences. 2: 6-11.

Scott K. 2004. The sweet and the bitter of mammalian taste. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 14: 423-427.

Sisodia P, Rao UR. 1968. Genetics andracial aspects of phenylthiocarbamide tasting ability in Indians. International symposium on The role of Genetics today. September, 1968. Stern C. 1960. Principles of human genetics. Freeman and Company, London. P. 167-169.

Tepper BJ. 1998. Genetics of perception 6-n-Propylthiouracil: a genetic marker for taste, with implications for food preference and dietary habits. Am J of Hum Genet. 63, 1271-1276.

Tepper BJ, Nurse RJ. 1997. Fat perception is related to PROP taster status. Physiol & Behav. 61: 949954.

Tepper BJ, Nurse RJ. 1998. PROP taster status is related to fat perception and preference. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 855: 802 804.

Tepper BJ, Christensen CM, Cao J. 2001. Development of brief methods to classify individuals by PROP taster status. Physio & Behav. 73: 571-577.

Whittemore PB. 1986. Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) tasting and reported depression. Journal of Clinical Psychology. 42: 260 263.

Whittemore PB. 1990. Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) tasting, genetics, and depression. Journal of Clinical Psychology. 46: 262272.

Zhao GQ, Zhang Y, Hoon MA, Chandrashekar J, Erlenbach I, Ryba NJ, Zuker CS. 2003. The receptors form mamalian sweet and umami taste. Cell. 115: 255-266.