Physiological taste threshold in type 1 diabetes mellitus.

The sense of taste is one of the important oral chemical senses that play a critical role in human life. The taste threshold increases by number of factors such as age, local and systemic disease like diabetes, consumption of alcohol, smoking. The aim of the present study was to assess the relationship between taste threshold in type 1 diabetics and non diabetics for four basic taste modalities (i.e. sweet, salt, sour and bitter). We studied 70 cases of type 1 diabetic and 70 non diabetics. The taste threshold was evaluated using 7 different serially half diluted concentrations of glucose (2.00 M-0.031 M), Nacl (1.00 M-0.0156 M), citric acid (0.05 M-0.0007 M) and quinine sulphate (0.001 M-0.000015 M). A significant increase in taste threshold for sweet (P<0.0001), salt, sour and bitter (P<0.001) in type 1 diabetic was observed. We concluded that taste sensation was reduced in type 1 diabetics.