Our bodies have to sense our environment, and receptors are one part of the sensory experience of the body. Receptors, such as those in taste buds, can interact with specific things in the environment, like sugar, to set off a cascade of molecular events that results in tasting sweetness.
Scientists have now deciphered the structure of the human receptor for sweet tastes, which deepens our understanding of how we taste things. These findings, which were reported in Cell, could also help food scientists boost the sweet tastes of foods, but without adding more sugar.
This structural data can tell us more about “the molecular mechanisms that govern how we detect sweetness, and how a single receptor can recognize such a broad range of sweet-tasting molecules,” said first study author Zhang Juen, an associate research scientist in the lab of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator (HHMI) Charles Zuker.
“This discovery will greatly benefit the battle against our strong desire for sugar, and enable the rational design of modulators of the sweet receptor, which in turn may help alleviate the prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.”
The genes encoding for the sweet receptor were identified by the Zuker lab in 2001. Now that its structure has been revealed, scientists can learn how it can be affected or triggered. The researchers suggested that there may be molecules that can be added to food that will activate the sweet receptor, so we taste something sweet when we eat it, but without adding real or artificial sweeteners.
The consumption of excess sugars has been linked to a variety of health problems, such as diabetes and other metabolic or cardiovascular diseases. The Zuker lab's work has also shown that in the year 1800, the average American consumed about seven pounds of sugar every year. By 1900, that consumption had dramatically increased to an average of fifty pounds per year, and by 2000, the average American was eating about 120 pounds of sugar annually. But in the future, we may not have to consume so much of the sweet stuff to satisfy our sugar cravings.
Sources: Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Cell