The Genetics Behind Taste Perception and How it Affects our Diet/Health

BY NISHAT KABIR

It’s no secret that there’s a variety of cuisines and diets across many different cultures, and that these dishes affect the overall health amongst populations. Diets are influenced by various factors like availability, finance, culture, and taste perception. How someone registers flavors is partially reliant on genetic predispositions to certain foods. The sort of genetics that would make such a change could be built into our DNA, aka start in utero, where the mother’s own diet would later affect their child’s willingness to try sour and bitter flavors. 

Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) is the most likely explanation for taste perception built into our DNA. But what exactly are SNPs? These are basically small mutations that affect over 1% of a population. As a result, this is why people of the same culture might be more likely to eat similar flavors (such as spicier dishes), since the same mutation in the same region would cause similar protein changes. 

One common example lies within the TAS2R38 gene, which is responsible for one of the 25 bitter taste receptors that humans have. Specifically, it detects bitter-tasting thiourea compounds, which are usually found in vegetables like brussel sprouts and cabbage. 

One study classified people with variations in this gene into three groups, and an observation shows that each group also had varying levels of body weight and preference towards sweet/sugary food. The group with the highest magnitude of the SNP variation are called supertasters, and they were the least likely to enjoy bitter flavors. This is correlated with worse health because they’re less likely to create cuisines that contain bitter/healthier vegetables. SNPs like rs713598, rs1726866, and rs10246939 being inherited means that within many generations, there will be a population that will inherit taste preferences due to these genetic changes. As a result, different cultures (that are made up of a distinct population) will have similar genetic predispositions to food.

Another factor could lie in the maternal diet during pregnancy. Studies show that if the mother has a diet containing bitter or spicier food, then their child will be somewhat less likely to reject these foods later on. The addition of such foods into their diets within the first 1,000 days of their lives would also affect how adverse they are to it for the rest of their lives. For example, a study by Menella and Jagnow in 2001, had pregnant and non-pregnant mothers consume carrot juice four times a week over three weeks. The children of non-pregnant mothers consumed nutrients from the carrot juice through their breast milk. Of the two groups, the mothers who drank carrot juice during their pregnancy had children who enjoyed the taste more. 

From a genetic standpoint, the reason why maternal diet affects the fetus’ preferences for flavors comes from the way her diet will affect the fetus’ microbiome. In an analysis of pregnant women undergoing a famine, DNA methylation causes changes in how well the fetus can “hold onto” nutrition. When the child is no longer exposed to low-nutrition conditions, they are more likely to develop cholesterol problems because a “normal” amount of fat and carbs are held on longer.

All of these genetic factors, as well as environmental factors, affect how a group of people would consume their food. Ultimately, an individual’s choices on what they choose to eat trump their genetic predispositions to how food might taste, and it’s important to understand that one’s health starts with their relationship with food.

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Diószegi, J., Llanaj, E., & Ádány, R. (2019). Genetic Background of Taste Perception, Taste Preferences, and Its Nutritional Implications: A Systematic Review. Frontiers in genetics, 10, 1272. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2019.01272

Feeney, E., O'Brien, S., Scannell, A., Markey, A., & Gibney, E. R. (2011). Genetic variation in taste perception: does it have a role in healthy eating?. The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 70(1), 135–143. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0029665110003976

Mennella, J. A., Jagnow, C. P., & Beauchamp, G. K. (2001). Prenatal and postnatal flavor learning by human infants. Pediatrics, 107(6), E88. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.107.6.e88 

Vaiserman, A., & Lushchak, O. (2021). Prenatal famine exposure and adult health outcomes: an epigenetic link. Environmental epigenetics, 7(1), dvab013. https://doi.org/10.1093/eep/dvab013