No clear support for sweet liking as a major risk factor for obesity: Extreme sweet likers may have greater awareness of internal appetite regulation

Understanding sweet-liking phenotypes and their implications for obesity: narrative review and future directions. Rhiannon M Armitage, Vasiliki Iatridi, Martin R Yeomans. Physiology & Behavior, March 23 2021, 113398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113398

Highlights

• Sweet liking can be separated into three identifiable phenotypes

• Differences may reflect sensitivity to homeostatic appetite signalling

• Extreme sweet likers may have greater awareness of internal appetite regulation

• No clear support for sweet liking as a major risk factor for obesity

• Future research should consider genetic, neural and broader behavioural differences

Abstract: Building on a series of recent studies that challenge the universality of sweet liking, here we review the evidence for multiple sweet-liking phenotypes which strongly suggest, humans fall into three hedonic response patterns: extreme sweet likers (ESL), where liking increases with sweetness, moderate sweet likers (MSL), who like moderate but not intense sweetness, and sweet dislikers (SD), who show increasing aversion as sweetness increases. This review contrasts how these phenotypes differ in body size and composition, dietary intake and behavioural measures to test the widely held view that sweet liking may be a key driver of obesity. Apart from increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in ESL, we found no clear evidence that sweet liking was associated with obesity and actually found some evidence that SD, rather than ESL, may have slightly higher body fat. We conclude that ESL may have heightened awareness of internal appetite cues that could protect against overconsumption and increased sensitivity to wider reward. We note many gaps in knowledge and the need for future studies to contrast these phenotypes in terms of genetics, neural processing of reward and broader measures of behaviour. There is also the need for more extensive longitudinal studies to determine the extent to which these phenotypes are modified by exposure to sweet stimuli in the context of the obesogenic environment.

Keywords: Sweet tastelikinghedonicsindividual differencesobesitysweet-liking phenotypes