A study conducted by Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine and House Foods Group Inc. found that patients with chronic kidney disease have a reduced ability to avoid highly salty tastes.
Salt intake increases blood pressure and leads to lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and chronic renal failure, so it is important to limit salt intake in order to properly control blood pressure.
On the other hand, the premise of salt restriction is that ``humans like salt,'' but since humans do not like to drink seawater, it is thought that humans have an aversion to highly salty tastes. Therefore, in this study, we developed a simple research method to quantitatively evaluate the aversion response to high-concentration salty taste by examining the threshold at which the taste changes from "like" to "dislike" for various concentrations of salty taste. Established.
First, when we conducted a taste test on healthy subjects using this method, the number of subjects who showed an aversion reaction increased as the saltiness concentration increased. However, approximately 37.6% of subjects did not show an aversion response even at the highest salt taste concentration (20%).
Next, when we conducted a similar taste test on patients with chronic kidney disease, we found that the minimum concentration at which saltiness can be recognized was higher than in healthy subjects, making it difficult for them to perceive salty taste. In addition, about 80% of people did not show an aversion response to salty tastes at a concentration of 20%, indicating that their repellency to high-concentration salty tastes was weakened. In other words, in patients with chronic kidney disease, not only are they unable to accurately perceive salty taste, but their ability to avoid salty foods is impaired, and it is possible that they unconsciously or unconsciously ingest salty foods.
This study suggested that even if you perceive the taste to be "bland," it may actually have a high salt concentration, and that it is uncertain how to limit salt based on your own taste. On the other hand, if the salty taste aversion response can be enhanced, it is thought that salt reduction behavior can be carried out more efficiently and effortlessly.
In the future, they will work on identifying factors that attenuate the salty taste repellent response and developing methods to induce the repellent response at lower concentrations.
Paper information:[Kidney International Reports] Aversion to a High Salt Taste is Disturbed in Patients With CKD
