Calcium vital to tickle our taste buds

Good morning friends. A new study has shown that calcium plays a vital role in tickling our taste buds.

The team of Japanese researchers have shown that calcium channels on the tongue are the targets of compounds that can enhance taste. Kokumi taste foods contain various compounds that have no taste themselves, but can enhance the basic sweet, salty and umami taste sensation they co-exist with. Lead researcher Yuzuru Eto examined whether calcium channels- which sense and regulate the levels of calcium in the body- might be the mechanism involved.

They found that calcium channels are closely related to the receptors that sense sweet and umami (savory) tastes and that glutathione (a common kokumi taste element) is known to interact with calcium channels. During the study, researchers created several small molecules that resembled glutathione and analyzed how well these compounds activated calcium channels in cell samples.

They diluted the same test substances in flavored water (salt water, sugar water, etc.) and asked volunteers (all trained in discriminating tastes) to rate how strong the flavors were. The findings revealed that the molecules induced the largest activity in calcium receptors and also elicited the strongest flavor enhancement in the taste tests. The research tested several other known calcium channel activators, including calcium, and found all exhibited some degree of flavor enhancement, while a synthetic calcium channel blocker could suppress flavors. The Times of India

Pollution could be turning you obese - 2

When activated, RXRs can migrate into the nuclei of cells and switch on genes that cause the growth of fat storage cells and regulate whole body metabolism -- compounds that affect a related receptor often associated with RXRs are now used to treat diabetes.

RXRs are normally activated by signalling molecules found throughout the body.

Taisen Iguchi and Yoshinao Katsu of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan described how RXRs and related receptors are also strongly activated by tributyltin and similar chemicals.

Tributyltin impairs reproduction in water fleas through its effects on a receptor similar to the RXR. In addition, tributyltin causes the growth of excess fatty tissue in newborn mice exposed to it in the womb.

The effects of tributyltin on RXR-like nuclear receptors might therefore be widespread throughout the animal kingdom.

The rise in obesity in humans over the past 40 years parallels the increased use of industrial chemicals over the same period. Iguchi and Katsu maintain that it is "plausible and provocative" to associate the obesity epidemic to chemical triggers present in the modern environment.

ref: thetimesofindia