Pungent tasting substance in ginger Reduces bad breath

6-gingerol, a pungent component of ginger, stimulates an enzyme contained in saliva – an enzyme that destroys smelly substances. It ensures a fresh breath and a better aftertaste. On the other hand, citric acid increases the sodium ion content of saliva, making salty foods less salty. To learn more about food components, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology studied the effects of dietary components on dissolved molecules in the saliva.

the characteristic taste of foods and beverages by means of their own taste, smell or pungency. However, they indirectly influence our sense of taste through other, yet largely unknown, biochemical mechanisms. A team led by Professor Thomas Hofmann of the Chair of Food Chemistry and Molecular Sensory Science has studied this phenomenon in more detail.

6-GINGEROL GUARANTEES FRESH BREATHING

As the results of this study show, the spicy principle of ginger, the so-called 6-gingerol, makes the level of the enzyme sulfhydryl oxidase 1 in saliva increases by 16 times in a few seconds. The saliva and respiration tests performed on human volunteers show that the enzyme breaks down the smelly sulfur compounds. In this way, it is able to reduce the long-lasting aftertaste of many foods such as coffee. "As a result, our breath also feels better," says Professor Hofmann, who led the study. The discovered mechanism could contribute to the future development of new oral hygiene products, says the director of the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at TUM.

CITRIC ACID REDUCES OUR PERCEPTION OF SALTINITY

Study, citric acid influences our perception of taste through a completely different mechanism. As everyone knows from personal experience, sour foods like lemon juice stimulate salivation. The amount of dissolved minerals in saliva also increases in proportion to the amount of saliva.

According to Professor Hofmann, the rate of sodium ions in saliva rises rapidly by about a factor of 11 after stimulation with citric acid. This effect makes us less sensitive to table salt. The food chemist explains: "Table salt is nothing but sodium chloride and sodium ions play a key role in the taste of salt.If saliva already contains higher concentrations of Sodium ions, tasted samples must have a significantly high salt content. relatively salty taste. "

Hofmann believes that much research still needs to be done to understand the complex interaction between molecules in foods that create taste, the biochemical processes that take place in saliva and our sense of taste Using a systems biology approach, Hofmann aims to develop a new scientific basis for food production with component and functional profiles that meet the health and sensory needs of consumers, to which end he and his team combine biomolecular research methods with high performance badytical technologies and bioinformatic methods

This article has been republished from materials provided by the Technical University of Munich Note: the content may have been modified for length and content For further information, please contact the author quoted. [19659003] Reference
Matthias Bader, Theresa Stolle, Maximilian Jennerwein, Jürgen Hauck, Buket Sahin, Thomas Hofmann. The chemosensate-induced modulation of salivary proteome and metabolome alters the sensory perception of salty taste and odorous thiols. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2018; 66 (29): 7740 DOI: 10.1021 / acs.jafc.8b02772.