PARIS, Feb 26: A natural compound that blocks the taste of bitterness could slash the quantities of sugar and salt that lace processed foods today, thus helping the fight against obesity and cardiovascular disease.

The claim is being made by a US biotech company, Linguagen, which has just received a patent for its discovery, the British weekly New Scientist reports in next Saturday’s issue.

Processed foods are stuffed with sweeteners, fat and salt that aim at making a product more palatable, partly by masking bitter flavours.

One tin of soup, for instance, can contain half a person’s recommended daily intake of salt.

Linguagen is founded by a New York biochemist, Robert Margolskee, who discovered the cascade of molecular reactions that occur when a taste is found to be bitter.

When receptor cells on the taste buds are in contact with a bitter compound, such as caffeine or grapefruit, they release a protein called gustducin, Margolskee found.

The gustducin, in turn, unleashes other proteins, culminating in a nerve signal being sent to the brain.

Linguagen researchers have tested a huge range of substances to see what could block the release of gustducin, and have come across a family of nucleotide molecules that exist naturally and are already found in various foods, according to the report.

That means the compounds will not require approval from the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when small amounts are added to food, New Scientist says.—AFP