NIH Workshop Report: sensory nutrition and disease

Danielle R Reed; Amber L Alhadeff; Gary K Beauchamp; Nirupa Chaudhari; Valerie B Duffy; Monica Dus; Alfredo Fontanini; John I Glendinning; Barry G Green; Paule V Joseph; George A Kyriazis; Mark Lyte; Padma Maruvada; John P McGann; John T McLaughlin; Timothy H Moran; Claire Murphy; Emily E Noble; M Yanina Pepino; Jennifer L Pluznick; Kristina I Rother; Enrique Saez; Alan C Spector; Catia Sternini; Richard D Mattes

doi:10.1093/ajcn/nqaa302

NIH Workshop Report: sensory nutrition and disease

Am J Clin Nutr. 2021 Jan 4;113(1):232-245. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/nqaa302.

Authors

Danielle R Reed¹, Amber L Alhadeff^{1

2}, Gary K Beauchamp¹, Nirupa Chaudhari^{3

4

5}, Valerie B Duffy⁶, Monica Dus⁷, Alfredo Fontanini⁸, John I Glendinning^{9

10}, Barry G Green^{11

12}, Paule V Joseph^{13

14}, George A Kyriazis¹⁵, Mark Lyte^{16

17}, Padma Maruvada¹⁸, John P McGann¹⁹, John T McLaughlin^{20

21}, Timothy H Moran²², Claire Murphy^{23

24}, Emily E Noble²⁵, M Yanina Pepino^{26

27}, Jennifer L Pluznick²⁸, Kristina I Rother²⁹, Enrique Saez³⁰, Alan C Spector^{31

32}, Catia Sternini³³, Richard D Mattes³⁴

Affiliations

¹ Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
² Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
³ Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA.
⁴ Department of Otolaryngology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA.
⁵ Program in Neurosciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA.
⁶ Department of Allied Health Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.
⁷ Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
⁸ Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
⁹ Department of Biology, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Neuroscience and Behavior, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
¹¹ The John B Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, CT, USA.
¹² Department of Surgery (Otolaryngology), Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
¹³ National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
¹⁴ National Institute of Nursing, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
¹⁶ Interdepartmental Microbiology Graduate Program, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.
¹⁸ National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases , NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
¹⁹ Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
²⁰ Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, & Gastroenterology, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
²¹ Department of Gastroenterology, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, Salford, United Kingdom.
²² Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
²³ Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA.
²⁴ Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
²⁵ Department of Foods and Nutrition, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
²⁶ Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
²⁷ Division of Nutritional Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
²⁸ Department of Physiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
²⁹ Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
³⁰ Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA.
³¹ Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
³² Program in Neuroscience, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
³³ Digestive Disease Division, Departments of Medicine and Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³⁴ Department of Nutrition Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.

Abstract

In November 2019, the NIH held the "Sensory Nutrition and Disease" workshop to challenge multidisciplinary researchers working at the interface of sensory science, food science, psychology, neuroscience, nutrition, and health sciences to explore how chemosensation influences dietary choice and health. This report summarizes deliberations of the workshop, as well as follow-up discussion in the wake of the current pandemic. Three topics were addressed: A) the need to optimize human chemosensory testing and assessment, B) the plasticity of chemosensory systems, and C) the interplay of chemosensory signals, cognitive signals, dietary intake, and metabolism. Several ways to advance sensory nutrition research emerged from the workshop: 1) refining methods to measure chemosensation in large cohort studies and validating measures that reflect perception of complex chemosensations relevant to dietary choice; 2) characterizing interindividual differences in chemosensory function and how they affect ingestive behaviors, health, and disease risk; 3) defining circuit-level organization and function that link and interact with gustatory, olfactory, homeostatic, visceral, and cognitive systems; and 4) discovering new ligands for chemosensory receptors (e.g., those produced by the microbiome) and cataloging cell types expressing these receptors. Several of these priorities were made more urgent by the current pandemic because infection with sudden acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the ensuing coronavirus disease of 2019 has direct short- and perhaps long-term effects on flavor perception. There is increasing evidence of functional interactions between the chemosensory and nutritional sciences. Better characterization of this interface is expected to yield insights to promote health, mitigate disease risk, and guide nutrition policy.

Keywords: food intake; food preferences; liking; olfaction; sweet.

Abstract

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