Salt taste responsiveness and preference among normotensive, prehypertensive and hypertensive adults

A taste dependent marker for prehypertensives was sought inwhite American adults. Direct measures for NaCl taste responsivenessand preference were judgements of the intensity of suprathresholdaqueous solutions, judgements of the intensity of and preferencefor salted tomato juice or rice, and ad libitum salting of lowsodium tomato juice. A questionnaire provided an indirect measureof NaCl acceptability and intake. Sucrose-sweetened fruit-flavoredbeverage was a control taste stimulus. Blood pressure criteria,supplemented with family history, relative weight, heart rate,and salt-use, segregated subjects into normotensive, prehypertensiveand untreated hypertensive groups. No statistically significantdifferences between groups were found in mean taste responsivenessor preference towards NaCl or towards the sucrose-sweetenedbeverage. NaCl acceptability and intake were also similar. Theresults suggest that NaCl suprathreshold taste responsivenessand preference are not useful predictors for hypertension inthe population studied.