الوضع الليلي
0
Coffee Tastes Bitter, So Why Do People Drink It?
7:33:46 2018-11-19 1926

It may sound counterintuitive, but people who are supersensitive to coffee's bitter taste actually drink more of it, a new study finds.

 

This sensitivity isn't simply a matter of taste, either, but rather is influenced by a person's genetic makeup, the researchers said in the study, which was published online on Thursday (Nov. 15) in the journal Scientific Reports.

 

"You'd expect that people who are particularly sensitive to the bitter taste of caffeine would drink less coffee," study senior researcher Marilyn Cornelis, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a statement. "The opposite results of our study suggest coffee consumers acquire a taste [for] or an ability to detect [the bitterness of] caffeine due to the learned positive reinforcement elicited by caffeine." [10 Things You Need to Know About Coffee]

 

Put another way, people who have a heightened ability to taste the bitterness of coffee, and especially the distinct bitter flavor of caffeine, learn to associate "good things with it," Cornelis said. This finding is surprising, given that bitterness often serves as a warning mechanism to convince people to spit out harmful substances, the scientists said.

 

Researchers conducted the study to understand how genetics influences people's consumption of tea, coffee and alcohol, which tend to taste bitter, said lead study researcher Jue Sheng Ong, a doctoral student in the Department of Genetics and Computational Biology at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia.

 

"While all bitter flavors might seem the same, we perceive the bitterness of Brussels sprouts, tonic water (quinine) and caffeine separately," Ong told Live Science. "The degree to which we find these flavors bitter is, in part, determined by your genes."

 

 

To investigate, the researchers looked at the genetic makeup and daily bitter-beverage consumption of more than 400,000 people from the United Kingdom. "Using the genes related to our ability to taste bitterness, we were able to assess whether those that have a higher genetic predisposition to tasting bitterness are more likely to prefer tea over coffee," Ong said.

 

The results showed that people with the genes to taste the bitterness of green vegetables (such as Brussels sprouts) or tonic water are more likely to prefer tea over coffee, the researchers found. In addition, people who were more sensitive to quinine's bitter flavors and those found in green vegetables tended to avoid coffee.

 

Meanwhile, people with the genes to taste the bitterness in Brussel sprouts were less likely to drink alcohol, especially red wine, than people without those gene variants, the researchers found. This insight may help scientists studying addiction, Ong said.

 

Ong noted that the researchers didn't look at flavorings, such as cream or sugar, that people sometimes pour into coffee to temper its bitterness. "One can imagine that, at a personal level, there are a lot of factors that determine a person’s coffee intake — socioeconomic status, ability to metabolize caffeine and smoking," he said. "On top of that, people drink all sorts of coffee — black coffee, flat white [and] cappuccino." So, the researchers chose to look for big trends in how genes relate to bitter-beverage consumption, he said.

 

"[The results] suggest that perhaps most types of coffee still share very similar bitter-taste profiles," Ong said.

Foresight   2026-03-24
Reality Of Islam

MOST VIEWS

Importance of Media

9:3:43   2018-11-05

Illuminations

the 1st ever brothers

6:14:17   2018-06-21

be yourself

4:2:19   2022-10-10

your thoughts

8:15:37   2023-02-16

the effect of words

5:58:12   2021-12-18

prophet adam & the apple

1:16:44   2018-05-14

loyalty is strength

10:55:53   2022-06-13

overcoming challenges

5:57:34   2023-03-18



IMmORTAL Words
LATEST Microplastics Found in 84% of Serious Heart Attack Patients Tiny Flying Robot from MIT Just Learned to Move Like a Real Insect NASA Reveals the Stunning Annual Turquoise Transformation of the Black Sea Where You Live May Shape Your Dementia Risk More Than Scientists Realized New Metal Alloy Is up to 10 Times Stronger Than Structural Steel Antarctic Meltwater Is Making Glaciers Slide Faster Toward the Ocean The Bitha The Alarm of All Creatures on the Night of the Prophet Mohammad was born (Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him and His Family) Hitting Children and Its Psychological Impact Popular Childhood Drinks Linked to Higher Blood Pressure Later in Life New Wearable Patch Boosts REM Sleep Without Drugs or Surgery NASA Satellites Spot a Powerful El Niño Building Beneath the Pacific