Surveying Food and Beverage Liking A Tool for Epidemiological Studies to ConnectChemosensation with Health Outcomes

摘要

Genetics, environmental exposures, and aging interact to produce variations in theperception or liking of taste, olfaction, and somatosensory sensations (i.e., chemosen-sation). Chemosensory variation can affect disease risk by influencing what people likeand choose to eat from abundant supplies of desirable high-fat, sweet, and salty foodsand alcoholic beverages at the expense of less-available or less-liked vegetables. Wecontend that assessing dietary preference via liking—disliking surveys holds promisefor linking chemosensation with dietary intake and health outcomes in population-based studies. Typical intake measures (e.g., frequency surveys, dietary records) aredifficult to complete and interpret. Because of memory issues and dietary restraint,individuals under- or overreport intakes, leading to inaccurate conclusions about diet—disease relationships. Surveying food and beverage liking is a time-efficient, simpletask that minimizes the cognitive limitations of intake measures. In the present study,women in a worksite health risk appraisal completed brief food frequency and likingsurveys and reported their height and weight, and blood pressure was measured. Whileliking and intake measures for high-fat and high-fiber foods were correlated, only lik-ing was associated with disease risk. In multiple regression models, women reportinggreater liking for high-fat foods and less liking for spicy foods had greater adiposityand/or blood pressure, controlling for age. These data, along with previous laboratoryand community-based studies, support that reported liking of high-fat foods explainsvariability in adiposity and adiposity-related outcomes. Hedonic measures appear tocapture habitual intake of foods and beverages, are easy to implement in the field, andthus may increase understanding of how chemosensory variation modifies disease risk.