[Analysis of whole-mouth taste function test results in 584 healthy adults]

Objective: To assess the taste function of healthy Chinese adults with the reliable whole-mouth taste test, and to analyze the correlation of taste function with age and gender. Methods: The clinical data of 584 participants reporting the normal sense of smell and taste from March 2019 to January 2020 in the Physical Examination Center of Beijing Anzhen Hospital were analyzed in the study, including 297 males and 287 females, aging (46.9±16.6) years. The subjects were divided into youth group (19-35 years old), middle aged group (36-50 years old), middle-elderly aged group (51-65 years old) and elderly group (66-80 years old). The taste test involved 5 tastants (sour, sweet, salty, umami and bitter) and 7 concentrations. The perception and recognition scores of five tastes were obtained through the whole-mouth taste test. SPSS 22.0 software was used for statistical analysis. Results: The intra-class correlation coefficients of the whole-mouth taste test were 0.751 to 0.828, which showed high test-retest reliability. The total score of perception and recognition of five tastes showed the significant negative correlation with age (r value was -0.49 and -0.44, respectively, both P<0.001). Compared with the other two groups, taste function of middle-elderly aged and elderly group decreased significantly (all P<0.001). There was no significant difference in total perception scores and total recognition scores between youth and middle aged group (all P>0.05). The perception scores and recognition scores of sour, salty, umami, bitter and total scores in females were higher than those in males (all P<0.05), but there was no significant difference in perception scores and recognition scores for sweet between them (P value was 0.584 and 0.223, respectively). Conclusions: The taste function is significantly negatively correlated with age. Except the sweet, females are more sensitive to the sour, salty, umami and bitter tastes than males.