Sweet Taste

Studies by Kaisu Keskitalo and colleagues in Finland reported that many human beings appear to have an innate preference for sweet taste, but the degree of liking for sweet foods varies individually. They studied the proportion of inherited sweet taste preference and performed an analysis of a genome-wide linkage to locate “Individual differences in sweet taste preferences, which appear to be partly heritable.” A locus on chromosome 16 was found to affect the use frequency of sweet foods. This result was considered to be very significant, because a sweet taste preference had not been previously shown to be heritable in humans. If an aspect of kinesthesia (e.g., sweet taste preference) is at least partially heritable, additional studies may reveal that other aspects of sensory preference also show heritability. Taste appears to be decoded in the parietal Lobes.