The Effect of Dietary Sugar Consumption on Sweet Taste Perception

Monell Chemical Senses Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Sweet Taste Perception

Treatments: Other: Low sugar diet; Other: Sham diet manipulation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Industry

Identifiers

NCT02090478

IND039A01WISE

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of the study is to determine how reducing the amount of simple sugars in the diet affects sweet taste perception. Healthy adult subjects will be assigned to either follow their usual diet, or to replace sugar calories with fats or starch.

The investigators hypothesize that eating less sugar will:

1. cause foods and drinks with a given amount of sugar to taste sweeter
2. cause people to prefer lower levels of sugar in foods and drinks

Enrollment: 50 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 60 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Good general heath (by self report)
• Consume at least 2 sugar-containing soft drinks/day on average)
• Able to control diet (select their own foods)

Exclusion criteria

• Major illness of any kind within the last six months, or any chronic illness
• Daily use of medication, except for birth control, vitamins, and aspirin
• Regularly consume non-nutritive sweeteners
• Pregnant women
• Gained or lost 10% or more of their body weight in the last 3 months

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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50 participants in 2 patient groups

No change in dietary sugar levels

Sham Comparator group

Description:

Group met with a dietician as often as the control group to discuss diet, but the dietician gave them advice geared toward no change in dietary sugar levels

Treatment:

Other: Sham diet manipulation

Low sugar group

Experimental group

Description:

Subjects met with a dietician who discussed diet records. After the first month (baseline, regular diet), the dietician made suggestions geared toward reducing calories from simple sugars by 40%. This will be achieved by replacing sugar calories with complex carbohydrates and fats, while maintaining energy balance (same number of calories as the baseline month).

Treatment:

Other: Low sugar diet