Humans differ in their perception of sweet taste.[79-86] One of the best known examples of this variation is a sweet liking phenotype (Figure 3): in ‘sweet-likers’, hedonic ratings of sucrose solutions monotonously increase with increasing concentrations, while in ‘sweet-dislikers’ at higher sucrose concentrations the ratings decrease.[81,86] Mechanisms underlying human variation in sweet taste, including ‘sweet-liker’ and ‘sweet-disliker’ phenotype could be complex: they may involve peripheral or central taste processing and can be genetically determined, acquired or depend on interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Nevertheless, genetic factors explain at least part of variation in sweet taste preferences in humans.[33,34,87-94]
