Publication:

Evaluation and comparison of taste perception and caries experience between father, mother and child

Background Individual taste perception is used to evaluate the clinical assessment of caries susceptibility. Given that parents have a major influence on their children's eating habits, it would be beneficial to evaluate the relationship between the father, mother and child's taste perception and caries experience in order to predict the child's susceptibility to dental caries. Thus the aim of the present study is to compare the taste perception and caries experience between father, mother and child.

Methods A sample of 113 parents and their child aged between 6-12 years were selected for the study. After gathering information on dietary patterns and dental hygiene procedures through cross sectional-based questionnaire survey, caries experience of parents and their child were recorded using DMFT and deft indices respectively, then the 6-n propylthiouracil (PROP) test strips were used to evaluate taste.  Participants were grouped into supertasters, medium tasters and non-tasters based on their perception of taste. The obtained data was statistically analyzed   by using Kruskal Wallis and chi square test in   SPSS software 21.0.

Results Statistically significant results were obtained in comparing taste perception of mother and child, but no significance was noted between taste perception of father and child. Significance was noted regarding caries experience among parents and children and no correlation was noted between parents’ taste perception and child’s caries experience.

Conclusions The present study concluded that there is strong inverse correlation between the ability to taste the bitterness of PROP tester strip and the caries experience but there is no correlation between taste perception of parents to caries experience of their child. PROP sensitivity test can be a valuable tool in the future to assess the inherent genetic sensitivity of a person for dietary preferences.