Background: The sweet taste and bitter taste genes are thought to have an influence on obesity and caries, which are chronic diseases.
Objectives: The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of the polymorphisms of TAS2R38 (the bitter taste gene) and TAS1R2 (the sweet taste gene), which are the most important members of the taste gene family, on the dental status of obese and normal-weight children.
Material and methods: The study included 78 healthy children and 100 children diagnosed with obesity (5-16 years old). The anthropometric measurements and dental status of the children were evaluated. The decayed, missing and filled permanent/primary teeth (DMFT/dmft) index was determined using the standard methods recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Blood samples were collected from all subjects and were analyzed via the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, with the use of specific primers for the genetic analysis. Five single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the TAS2R38 and TAS1R2 genes were investigated. The truncated Poisson and truncated negative binomial modeling approaches were used with regard to the data.
Results: The DMFT/dmft scores were low in obese children and high in children who did not sense the bitter taste (non-tasters). While obese non-taster children had increased DMFT/dmft scores, normalweight non-taster children had decreased DMFT/dmft scores.
Conclusions: The alanine, valine and isoleucine (AVI) as well as proline, alanine and valine (PAV) haplotypes of the TAS2R38 gene are associated with the DMFT/dmft index and obesity. This study showed that the DMFT/dmft scores were decreased in obese children. According to the haplotype analysis of the TAS2R38 gene, the DMFT/dmft scores were increased in non-tasters. When differentiating obese nontasters and control non-tasters, DMFT/dmft increased in obese non-taster patients, while it decreased in control non-taster patients.
Keywords: TAS2R38 polymorphism; childhood obesity; genetic; oral health; tooth decay.