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Sweet taste and intake of sweet foods in normal pregnancy and pregnancy complicated by gestational diabetes mellitus^1,2,3

¹ From the Department of Food Science, Cook College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.

Background:Dietary compliance in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is poor. Changes in sweet taste perception might alter food preferences in GDM, making dietary compliance difficult to achieve. These indexes have never been studied in GDM.

Objectives: This study documented changes in sweet taste perception and dietary intakes in pregnant women with and without GDM and determined whether these differences persisted postpartum.

Design: Subjects were 30 pregnant women without GDM, 25 pregnant women with recently diagnosed GDM, and 12 nonpregnant control subjects. Pregnant women were tested at 28–32 wk gestation and retested 12 wk postpartum. Subjects evaluated the taste of strawberry-flavored milks with different sucrose (0–10%) and fat (0–10%) contents and glucose solutions (10–160 mmol/L).

Results: Women with GDM showed no differences in liking for the milk samples across test sessions and their liking ratings were not significantly different from those of nonpregnant control subjects. Women without GDM liked the 10% sucrose-sweetened milk samples less during pregnancy than at 12 wk postpartum (P 0.01), at which time their ratings were not significantly different from those of nonpregnant control subjects. In women with GDM, plasma glucose after a 50-g glucose load was correlated with both increased liking for the taste of glucose (r = 0.64, P 0.001) and higher consumption of fruit and fruit juices (r = 0.45, P 0.02).

Conclusions: Normal pregnancy was associated with a lower preference for 10% sucrose-sweetened milk samples late in gestation than postpartum, whereas GDM was associated with no such differences. Plasma glucose in women with GDM was related to a higher preference for the sweet taste of glucose and higher dietary sweet-food intakes from fruit and fruit juices. These findings have important implications for the dietary management of GDM.

Key Words: Gestational diabetes mellitus • taste • diet • pregnancy • sweetness • oral-glucose-tolerance test • women

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