Three independent measures of sweet taste liking have weak and inconsistent associations with sugar and sweet food intake - insights from the sweet tooth study.

Abstract

Authoritative public health agencies, like the WHO, recommend reducing dietary sweetness to lower sweet liking, and thereby indirectly lowering sugar and energy intake. However, data on an association between sweetness liking and sugar/sweet food intake are inconsistent. Moreover, sweetness liking can be measured in various ways, and the agreement between methods is unclear. Baseline data from the Sweet Tooth study (n = 178) were used to evaluate the agreement between three different measures of sweetness liking and their association with sugar and sweet food intake. Sweetness liking was assed by: 1) psychohedonic sweetness functions, 2) sweet liker phenotype, and 3) self-reported sweet / fat-sweet preference. Sugar and sweet food intake were assessed via 24-h recall and a FFQ assessing the consumption of food groups based on taste (TasteFFQ). On a group level, the three sweetness liking measures showed similar results; sweet liker phenotype showed higher liking of high sweetness levels (F(2,175) = 27.9, p < .001), and higher preference for sweet and fat-sweet foods (sweet: χ2(2) = 16.2, p < .001, sweet-fat: χ2(2) = 24.8;p < .001). Self-reported preferences for sweet foods were associated with intake of simple sugars (χ2(1) = 6.10, p = .014), energy (χ2(1) = 5.82, p = .016), and sweet foods (χ2(1) = 5.05, p = .025). Neither the psychohedonic functions, sweet liker phenotype nor self-reported fat-sweet preferences were associated with sugar and/or sweet food intake (all p > .05). These findings suggest that, while sweetness preferences can be measured using different approaches, high sweetness liking has only a limited relationship with actual sugar and sweet food intake. These findings challenge the assumption that preferences for sweet tastes drive high intakes of sweet foods and sugars. Ethical approval for the involvement of human subjects in this study was granted by METC-WU, ABR nr. NL72134, 10/05/20.