- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — It may be time to add
calcium to the types of tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory —
that can be detected by humans, according to U.S. researchers.

They found that a taste for calcium exists in mice. Since mice and
humans share many of the same genes, the finding suggests that people may
also be able to taste calcium. If that's true, it could have a number of
implications.

“People don't consume as much calcium as nutritionists would like, and
one reason for this is that foods high in calcium don't taste good to many
people. Tweaking its taste could encourage a calcium-deficient population
to consume more of this key nutrient,” Michael G. Tordoff, of the Monell
Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, said in an American Chemical
Society news release.

“By understanding how calcium is detected in the mouth, we can either
make it easier to consume by reducing its bad taste or even make
pharmacological agents that make it taste better,” Tordoff said.

He and his colleagues identified two receptors on the tongues of mice
that are involved in tasting calcium. One is a calcium-sensing receptor
called CaSR that has been found in the parathyroid gland, kidney, brain
and gastrointestinal tract.

“We didn't know it was on the tongue before,” Tordoff said.

The other receptor is T1R3, which plays a role in sweet taste. The
discovery that T1R3 also plays a role in tasting calcium was “very
unexpected.”

Tordoff and his team were expected to presented the research Wednesday
at the American Chemical Society's national meeting, in Philadelphia.

More information

The Society for Neuroscience has more about taste.