London: Smokers cannot fully appreciate the full flavour of a cup of coffee, as they cannot taste the bitterness of their regular caffeine kick, a new study has found. The effect was also seen in those who have already quit smoking, researchers said. It is already known that smoking, and especially the toxic chemicals in tobacco, causes a loss of taste among smokers, they said. It also causes structural changes to the fungiform papillae of the tongue where the taste buds are located.
However, it is not yet known whether the full taste range returns to normal once a person quits smoking, or how long it takes. Researchers led by Nelly Jacob of the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital APHP in France tested the ability of 451 staff from Parisian hospitals to recognise the four basic tastes of sweet, sour, bitter and salty, as well as the intensity of each taste.The participants were grouped into smokers, non-smokers and people who had quit smoking.
The voluntary tests were conducted over the course of three consecutive "World No-Tobacco Days." It was found that smoking status had no influence on a person's ability to recognise salty, sweet or sour tastes. It did however have an effect on people's ability to taste the bitter taste of caffeine. The bitter receptors in the tongue are generally able to detect this taste in very low concentrations.
However, one in every five smokers (19.8 per cent) could not correctly recognise the taste, while the same happened onein every four times (26.5 per cent) that former smokers were put to the test.
Only 13.4 per cent of non-smokers could not correctly identify the bitter samples they were asked to taste. Researchers believe that the accumulation in the body of some tobacco or combustion products may hamper the regeneration of taste buds, and therefore still impair a person's ability to recognise certain tastes even after they have stopped smoking.
"We consider that the perception of bitter taste should be examined more closely, both as a tool for smoking cessation or for preventing smoking initiation. More generally, it should be worthwhile to consider the role of chemosensory perceptions in smoking behaviour," said Jacob. The study was published in Springer's journal Chemosensory Perception.
