Search resultsEthanol perception and ingestion
Title
Ethanol perception and ingestion
Publication type
Journal Article
Year of Publication
2001
Authors
Journal
Physiology and Behavior
Volume
72
Issue
1-2
Pagination
217 - 229
Date published
2001
ISBN
00319384 (ISSN)
Keywords
Adult, alcohol, alcohol consumption, Alcohol Drinking, Alcoholic Beverages, anthropometric parameters, article, body composition, body weight, controlled study, diet, Electrophysiology, Ethanol, Female, Food Preferences, health status, human, human experiment, Humans, Irritants, male, Middle Aged, Naphthalenes, odor, perception, perceptive threshold, personality, phenylthiourea, priority journal, quinine, Sensory Thresholds, Smell, Taste, taste acuity, Tetralones
Abstract
Ethanol is a common dietary constituent, but knowledge of its chemosensory properties and their relationship to its ingestion is limited. Twenty-five male and 25 female, light-regular ethanol consumers participated in five test sessions. Sessions involved determination of taste, olfactory and nasal irritation thresholds for ethanol, taste thresholds for tetralone, suprathreshold intensity and quality judgements, determination of phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) taster status, acute oral exposure effect of ethanol on ratings for sucrose, NaCl, citric acid and quinine hydrochloride and hedonic judgments of beers. Questionnaires on personality traits, diet and health were also completed and body composition determined. Diet histories were obtained on three random days. A randomized subset of sensory tests and questionnaires were administered each session. The rank order of ethanol thresholds was taste > nasal irritancy > olfaction and the predominant taste near threshold was bitter. Except for a lower taste threshold in females, no other effects of gender, PTC taster status, ethanol use or body composition were observed. Acute exposure to ethanol suppressed the bitterness of quinine, but enhanced its bitter aftertaste. Ethanol use was not associated with differences in dietary, sensory or textural characteristics. Thus, among light to regular ethanol consumers, no substantive association was observed between sensory responses to ethanol and diet.