Measuring Taste Impairment inEpidemiologic Studies The Beaver Dam Offspring Study

摘要

Taste or gustatory function may play an important role in determining diet and nutri-tional status and therefore indirectly impact health. Yet there have been few attempts tostudy the spectrum of taste function and dysfunction in human populations. Epidemi-ologic studies are needed to understand the impact of taste function and dysfunctionon public health, to identify modifiable risk factors, and to develop and test strategiesto prevent clinically significant dysfunction. However, measuring taste function in epi-demiologic studies is challenging and requires repeatable, efficient methods that canmeasure change over time. Insights gained from translating laboratory-based methodsto a population-based study, the Beaver Dam Offspring Study (BOSS) will be shared. Inthis study, a generalized labeled magnitude scale (gLMS) method was used to measuretaste intensity of filter paper disks saturated with salt, sucrose, citric acid, quinine, or6-n-propylthiouracil, and a gLMS measure of taste preferences was administered. Inaddition, a portable, inexpensive camera system to capture digital images of fungiformpapillae and a masked grading system to measure the density of fungiform papillaewere developed. Adult children of participants in the population-based Epidemiologyof Hearing Loss Study in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, are eligible for this ongoing study. Theparents were residents of Beaver Dam and 43-84 years of age in 1987-1988; offspringranged in age from 21-84 years in 2005-2008. Methods will be described in detail andpreliminary results about the distributions of taste function in the BOSS cohort will bepresented.