Taste hyposensitivity in Japanese schoolchildren

BMC Oral Health

Yoko Kawaguchi¹  Takashi Zaitsu¹  Masayuki Ueno¹  Mari Ohnuki¹ 

[1] Department of Oral Health Promotion, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan

关键词: Oral health status;    Taste test;    Schoolchildren;    Taste hyposensitivity;   

Others  :  1109888
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6831-14-36

 received in 2013-12-04, accepted in 2014-04-03,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

There is some research on taste disorder/hyposensitivity in special groups such as the elderly or patients presenting with specific taste problems, however few studies have been conducted among young populations. The objectives of this study were to estimate the prevalence of taste hyposensitivity and to investigate the relationship between taste hyposensitivity and oral health status in Japanese schoolchildren.

Methods

Subjects were 237 primary and 112 junior high school students in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. In total, 349 (boys: 181, girls: 168) students aged 6–15 years participated in the study. Oral examinations and whole-mouth taste tests using four tastes (sweet, salt, sour and bitter) solutions were conducted on the subjects. A subject who could not recognize the taste of the solution was defined as demonstrating hyposensitivity.

Results

Hyposensitivity was observed in 6.3% of all subjects for sweet-taste, 14.3% for salt-taste, 20.9% for sour-taste and 6.0% for bitter-taste. The prevalence of sweet, sour and bitter-taste hyposensitivity decreased as the subjects’ grade advanced. In contrast, the prevalence of salt-taste hyposensitivity increased in 7^th-9^th grade subjects. Furthermore, the prevalence of bitter-taste hyposensitivity was significantly higher in males than females among 1^st-3^rd graders.

Taste hyposensitivity had little association with oral health status, such as decayed teeth, filled teeth, dental plaque, gingival status and tongue coating.

Conclusions

In this study, taste hyposensitivity was observed in 6.0%-20.9% of the students. There was little association between taste hyposensitivity and oral health status. The current study implies that the factors affecting the taste hyposensitivity in children may different from those in the elderly. Therefore it is necessary to further investigate the causes of taste hyposensitivity among younger generation.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Ohnuki et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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