Talk:Supertaster

message: Why is tetrachromatacy a "see also" link from this entry. It is another interesting example of supranormal sensory discrimination but it not a human phenomena and seems like to tangential an assocition to be a branch off of supertaster.
Actually, human tetrachromats do exist, but they are very rare (google for "madame tetrachromat"). But given that supertasting is a normal, common occurrence, I agree that the inclusion of tetrachromat is curious.Jeh25 02:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: tetrachromat link?

message: Upon trying to re-find this page, I searched for "super taster", as in two words. Normally, WikiPedia is good at re-directing misspellings and uncommon spellings, but this one isn't implemented yet. Can someone who knows how to do this please do it?--Peter Knutsen 03:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the URL, I'll check it out.--Peter Knutsen 05:08, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Please make sure that "super taster" re-directs to here

message: We need a reference for the assertion that propyluracil is used to distinguish between normal tasters and supertasters in research settings. JFW | T@lk 21:53, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have a look at Google. EldKatt (Talk) 22:09, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ref for PROP 

message: link to BBC Supertasters is no good65.14.60.2 01:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  BBC Supertasters 

message: "Still, the T2R38 genotype has been linked to sweet preference,[7] alcohol intake,[5] colon cancer (via inadequate vegetable consumption)[8] and cigarette smoking.[citation needed]" - increased or decreased correlation? It's perceived as increased, but IIRC the last three are of decreased correlation. 89.139.82.136 (talk) 11:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correlation 

message: Aren't they the same?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.17.81.64 (talk) 19:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Supertasting is a normal phenotypic variation in the population whereas hypergeusia appears to be defined as a clinical disorder. That said, I'm not convinced hypergeusia really exists clinically, as there are only a handful of pubmed cites (4) and I've never seen the term before in the taste literature. (Hypogeusia on the other hand, is a well documented disorder.)Jeh25 (talk) 12:57, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with Hypergeusia 

message: If these are cooked a little I cannot taste them, if you cook them too much they taste like sulfurous poo 
But raw and uncooked they are yummy
Oh and I love coffee and hate grapefruit
Chilli is okay but it can swamp a meal, so flavour rotten meat with some chilli and a supertaster has lost an advantage?
80.7.74.46 (talk) 22:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess the question is if I'd notice that rotten meat even with some chilli powder added. I likely would, I can separate tastes like that. Bcw142 (talk) 16:26, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sprouts and cabbage 

message: Bartoshuk's claims are recent, in terms of their scientific examination. Have there been any dissenting views in the scientific community regarding "supertasters"? The lay community ran with this idea, and that typically results in nonsense being published in newspapers and on television programs. Is there any evidence of overreach? This article, as it stands, portrays Bartoshuk's work as provoking an immediate consensus in the scientific community, which was accurately portrayed by the popular media. That seems unlikely. wbakker2 (talk) 09:35, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any dissent with Bartoshuk? 

message: The article mentions that Fischer linked ability to taste PTC to body type, but it doesn't say how they were correlated. 
I did a brief google search and came up with this overview of part of the literature on supertaste. It is pretty old [2000], but then again it IS free access [and labels all of the citations which are free to access as well], which is a good thing for a wikipedia link. It's also written by Linda M. Bartoshuk, which is another plus. http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/4/447.full
To the point: 
"If some supertasting females find high sweet, high fat foods less pleasant, do they then eat less of them and possibly weigh less? In small samples of elderly women (Lucchina  et al., 1995) as well as younger women (Dabrila  et al., 1995) supertasters tended to be thinner. More recently, in a larger study (n = 596) (Duffy  et al., 1999), both female and male supertasters were thinner among subjects with normal body weight. In addition, both female and male supertasters were thinner in a sample where restrained eaters were excluded (Tepper and Ullrich, 1999)."
So, it might be worth mentioning that supertasters are likely to be thinner due to a greater dislike, on average, of highly sweet / fatty foods. This leads to them consuming less of these, hence less weight gain, etc. Is there any opposition to this idea?
If anyone has access to academic papers, I suggest they try tracking down the paper in which Fischer first speculated on the link to body type so we can cite that sentence [I'm not having any luck on Web of Knowledge, but then I'm a chemist].
Incidentally, I found this free access link and it may be of use as an overview of just a small part of the early research. [Especially if the PTC page is implying that humans either can or can't taste it, with no variation in sensitivities.]
http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythptc.html  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.75.227 (talk) 21:59, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Body type 

message: :Being a supertaster or nontaster represents normal variation in the human population like eye or hair color, so no treatment is needed.
It's not clear exactly what this statement means. Is it saying that because large numbers of people have this variation, no treatment to correct it is needed, but that if not as many people were supertasters, they would need to be treated for their condition?
I'd think that the only indicator for treatment is distress in one's life caused by it with no way of alleviating it by changing one's environment. So if someone lived where the only foods available were too intense-tasting, and no means were available for dulling them, one might seek treatment for one's heightened tasting ability. Blargg (talk) 00:31, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: "The phenomenon of normal variation means that, outside of everything pathological or incidental, all parts and all functions, of every known form of organism, vary; and that they vary within definite limits for each part, each species, under given basic conditions.  (Aleš Hrdlička - 1934)
The statement in question clarifies its meaning by comparing supertasting to other normal variations: eye color and hair color.  Further examples of normal variations are ear, nose, breast and penis sizes, difference in skin color, body height, head shape, curly or straight hair, etc. The statement means that since the "supertasting" trait is not of pathological origin but falls within the spectrum of normal variations in taste response, treatment is unnecessary.  Drinks10Looks3 (talk) 17:24, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

text: In other words, normal variation is normal. 84.227.250.171 (talk) 22:11, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Normal variation so no treatment needed, huh? 

message: Somehow, the following suggestion:
"This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (October 2016)"
has been placed above the title for this section.
This suggestion is completely inappropriate and should be removed.
This section is best by far, displayed in a list format and would be confusing and difficult to read and parse if collapsed into a prose format. Please remove the suggestion block. It is clearly wrong.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpasek (talk • contribs) 15:38, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Specific Food Sensitivities: 

message: I wonder if smoking deserves a mention due to it significantly reducing the sense of taste due to functional changes of the taste buds.
216.66.127.136 (talk) 14:20, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smoking and sense of taste 

message: should it be qualified by saying "dark chocolate" given that is most likely what is meant? Or is there evidence that some supertasters dislike even milk chocolate? 65.175.241.205 (talk) 22:31, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is meant by "chocolate"? 

message: “Because supertasters have a more sensitive sense of taste than medium or non-tasters, this can cause Image scaling artifacts.”
What? Gltile (talk) 19:01, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, originally that sentence just read "scaling artifacts" which redirected to image scaling artifacts. I suspect scaling artifacts might have some meaning in the scientific literature, but it got replaced at some point with the name of the page it was mistakenly redirected to and therefore makes absolutely no sense. So I just removed the entire sentence.  MrAureliusRTalk! 22:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  “Image scaling artifacts”