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People who eat sweets more likely to volunteer, help those i
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Does having a sweet tooth make a person more agreeable and friendly? New research suggests there could be a link between taste preferences and disposition.
Scientists in the United States found that a liking for sweeter foods is an indication that a person is more agreeable and helpful, but not extroverted or neurotic.
"It is striking that helpful and friendly people are considered 'sweet' because taste would seem to have little in common with personality or behavior,," said Brian Meiers, a professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.
"Our taste studies controlled for positive mood so the effects we found are not due to the happy or rewarding feeling one may have after eating a sweet food."
Taste is a recognizable sense that can be used in describing personality traits. With this in mind, the researchers wanted to see if having a preference for sweets was an embodiment metaphor,, a connection between thoughts and our body's behavior.
In one of five studies involving more than 500 people researchers from Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania,, St. Xavier University in Chicago and North Dakota State University showed that people who ate a piece of chocolate rather than a non-sweet food were more likely to volunteer and help another person in need.
In another study they found that people also associate having a sweet tooth with a pleasant disposition. The participants were shown photos of people with neutral facial expressions,, but with comments under the pictures that would say, for example, that they liked eating chocolate.
"People rated those associated with sweet food higher in agreeableness," Meiers said.
The research, which is published in the Journal of Personality Social Psychology, focused on sweetness and agreeability. The scientists said they could not comment on the other tastes such as bitterness or spiciness.
The study is part of a increase in recent years in social psychology research in conceptual and embodiment metaphors.
"There has been a push to find out how these traits are self-predicting of what we do with our daily life," said Sarah Moeller,, a psychology professor at St. Xavier University. "We are showing that with these personality traits that you show subtle aspect of self."
(Editing by Patricia Reaney)
Diabetes study from Sanford-Burnham finds pancreas can ̵
Just as the tongue has taste receptors that can distinguish sweet from sour,, scientists have found that the pancreas also has taste receptors. Researchers at Sanford –Burnham Medical Research Institute in Lake Nona have found that the pancreas uses taste receptors to sense fructose,, a kind of sugar that comes from fruit.
Before this study, scientists knew that fructose went to the liver where it’s converted to glucose, which triggers the pancreas to make insulin. But the new data revealed that fructose also stimulates pancreatic beta cells directly.
“We know a lot about how glucose interacts with the pancreas, but we didn’t think the pancreas had much to do with fructose,” said Bjorn Tyrberg, adjunct assistant professor in the Diabetes and Research Center at Sanford-Burnham, and senior author of the study, published online Friday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Keeping blood sugar, and?insulin levels, controlled is important to?diabetics and those who want to avoid developing the disease. Though Tyrberg stopped short of saying people should eat less fruit, which contains healthy fiber and vitamins, he reiterated the importance of watching out for dietary sugars, including high fructose corn syrup, which is in sweetened beverages and many processed and packaged foods.
If we look back at what our ancestors ate, fruit was not the problem,, and it still isn’t,” he said. “The problem is the combination of fruit layered on top of all the other sugars, hidden and? otherwise,, in our diet today.”
The finding moves science one step forward in understanding diabetes,, and toward developing a drug that may treat it. “These taste receptors are part of a group of proteins that are very favorable to drug development,” said Tyrberg. “We may be able to develop a drug that takes advantage of the impact fructose has on these receptors, and help us find ways to turn them off or on.”
Identifying the taste receptors will also give researchers a new way to study impaired insulin function in those who have diabetes.
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