Health Tips

Taste of Carbonation:-

In 1767, and stood chemist Joseph Priestley in his laboratory one day with an idea to help the English sailors stay in good health in long journeys in the oceans. He molded the water with carbon dioxide to create the liquid simulates the finest sparkling mineral water consumed in the European health resorts. Priestley, man-made tonic, which urged philanthropists to test His Majesty the King on board, did not prevent the outbreak of scurvy. However, as over the decades, the carbonated water and became popular in cities and towns to taste and fun later as a key element in sodas, sparkling wines, and all variety of soft drinks.

Absent from this nearly 250-year-old story is the scientific explanation of how people taste carbonate heated in the glass. In this week's issue of Science magazine, researchers at the National Institute of Dental Research and the skull (NIDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, San Diego (report they have discovered the answer in mice, and the sense of taste, which resembles a lot of people.

They found that the taste of soft drinks is initiated by the enzyme linked such as small flag from the roof of turbidity sensing cells in the taste buds. An enzyme called carbonic anhydrase 4, reacts with carbon dioxide in the soda, and activate cells of acid taste in the bud and drove her to send a message to the sensory brain, where carbonate is seen as a familiar sensation.
"Of course, this raises the question of why the carbonate is not only a sour taste," says Nicholas Ryba, Ph.D., senior author of the study and scientist NIDCR. "We know that carbon dioxide also stimulates the somatosensory system mouth, and therefore what we consider to carbonate should reflect the combination of these somatosensory information with that of taste." There somatosensory system transmits information within the body of sensory receptor protein to the nerve fibers and then to the brain, where is the controversy. Sensory information, including the common taste, touch, pain, and temperature. Ryba said the taste of soft drinks quite deceptive. "When people drink soft drinks, and they think that they are detected by the explosion of bubbles on the tongue," he said. "But if you drink carbonated drinks in the pressure chamber, which prevents the explosion of bubbles, and found that the sense is in fact the same, what people taste when detecting and furans and the gutter language is a combination of activating and taste and somatosensory receptors of cells, and this is what gives a sense of carbonate and distinct. "

While some chefs may disagree, and food does not tickle the taste buds that line the upper surface of the tongue, palate, and upper esophagus. Instead of salt in salted or sugar in trouble chocolate drop to match the taste receptor cells clustered in our taste buds.

Scientists believe that the sense of taste generates only a limited palate of distinguished qualities, namely: tastes sweet, sour, salty, bitter and familiar with the savory. A lot of flavor of food (in the "tickle the taste buds") comes from a combination of this information taste with input from other senses such as touch and smell.

Over the past decade, there has been considerable progress in determining the basis for detection of the five major taste qualities. In fact, the laboratory of Charles Zuker, Ph.D., senior author of the study from the University of California, San Diego, and Ryba already working to identify the proteins and cell receptors responsible for sweet, bitter, delicious taste receptor cells and a photo detection. But the sense of taste can detect other flavors?

Most recently, a number of groups have suggested that taste buds has revealed other qualities, such as fat and mineral tastes. She also pointed out that carbon dioxide induces strong reactions in the nerves of taste. The senses of carbon dioxide on many levels - in the somatosensory (including touch and pain), and the smell, and in the brain and blood to monitor breathing. But how are disclosed in the taste was not clear.

This claim Jayaram Chandrashekar, Ph.D., lead author of the study, and the world at the University of California, to explore the taste of soft drinks. Side by side with David Yarmolinsky, Lars von Buchholtz, Ph.D., co-authors of the paper, he discovered that an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase 4 is selectively expressed on the surface of sour taste receptor cells.

Carbonic anhydrase 4, California, or fourth, is one of a family of enzymes that catalyze conversion of carbon dioxide into carbon dioxide, which quickly ionizes the release of protons (acid ions) and hydrogen ion (low base). During this, anhydrases carbonic help to provide cells and tissues with a buffer that helps prevent excessive fluctuations in pH, a measure of acidity.

The scientists found that if canceled California to invalidate the fourth sensor cells or inhibiting the enzyme activity, it is a sharp drop mouse taste of carbon dioxide. California and thus the fourth activity provides the primary signal detected by the taste. California and the fourth reflects on the surface of cells, DNA, Chandrashekar and co-workers to the conclusion that the enzyme ideal for preparing generate acid catalyst for detection of these cells when presented with carbon dioxide.

Why mammals taste of soft drinks? Scientists are not sure whether the carbon dioxide detection itself serves an important role or is merely the result of the presence of CA IV on the surface of cells, DNA, where they may be found to help maintain the pH balance in the taste buds. Ryba also says: "This question is still open, and often is a good one to follow in the future."