People with Higher Sensitivity to Bitter Caffeine Taste Drink More Coffee, Study Says

A new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, has found that the more sensitive people are to the bitter taste of caffeine, the more coffee they drink.

Ong et al investigated the causal relationship between bitter taste perception and the consumption of coffee, tea and alcohol. Image credit: Tabble.

Ong et al investigated the causal relationship between bitter taste perception and the consumption of coffee, tea and alcohol. Image credit: Tabble.

“You’d expect that people who are particularly sensitive to the bitter taste of caffeine would drink less coffee,” said study senior author Dr. Marilyn Cornelis, a researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“The opposite results of our study suggest coffee consumers acquire a taste or an ability to detect caffeine due to the learned positive reinforcement (i.e. stimulation) elicited by caffeine.”

“In other words, people who have a heightened ability to taste coffee’s bitterness — and particularly the distinct bitter flavor of caffeine — learn to associate good things with it.”

Dr. Cornelis and co-authors conducted Mendelian randomization (a technique commonly used in disease epidemiology) analyses using genetic variants associated with the perception of three bitter substances (rs2597979 for caffeine, rs1726866 for propylthiouracil and rs10772420 for quinine) to evaluate the consumption of coffee, tea and alcohol among up to 438,870 UK Biobank participants.

“People who were more sensitive to caffeine and were drinking a lot of coffee consumed low amounts of tea,” Dr. Cornelis said

“But that could just be because they were too busy drinking coffee.”

The team also found people sensitive to the bitter flavors of quinine and of propylthiouracil avoided coffee.

For alcohol, a higher sensitivity to the bitterness of propylthiouracil resulted in lower alcohol consumption, particularly of red wine.

“The findings suggest our perception of bitter tastes, informed by our genetics, contributes to the preference for coffee, tea and alcohol,” Dr. Cornelis said.

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Jue-Sheng Ong et al. 2018. Understanding the role of bitter taste perception in coffee, tea and alcohol consumption through Mendelian randomization. Scientific Reports 8, article number: 16414; doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34713-z

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