De onderzoeker waarschuwt wel dat het moeilijk is om conclusies te trekken uit deze ene studie. En het is ook onduidelijk of hun voorkeur voor erg zoete smaken samenhangt met iets biologisch, of dat het eerder om aangeleerd gedrag en opvoeding gaat.
uit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8506758.stmThe US team report in the journal Addiction that certain children are especially drawn to very sweet tastes.
These were children who had a close relative with an alcohol problem or who themselves had symptoms of depression.
But it is unclear if the preference for the very sweet is down to genuine chemical differences or upbringing.
The researchers say sweet taste and alcohol trigger many of the same reward circuits in the brain.
...
These children preferred the drink containing the most sugar - 24% sucrose, which is equivalent to about 14 teaspoons of sugar in a cup of water and more than twice the level of sweetness in a typical cola.
This was a third more intense than the sweetness level preferred by the other children.
...
Cardiff University's Professor Tim Jacob, an expert in smell and taste, said the findings were interesting, but that it was hard to make firm conclusions or generalisations from one study alone.
He said the findings could be down to brain chemistry, but might also be explained by behaviour and upbringing.
"While it is true that sweet things activate reward circuits in the brain, the problem is that sweets and sugar are addictive, because the activation of these reward circuits causes opioid release, and with time more is needed to achieve the same effect.
"But the taste difference may be explained by differences like parental control over sweet consumption."
