Gustatory thresholds for sweet taste in hypertensive and diabetic elderly

The present study seeks to identify the gustatory threshold for sweet taste in elderly people registered in a hypertensive and diabetic patient monitoring program. A transversal and analytic epidemiological study conducted with elderly people registered in the monitoring program for diabetic and hypertensive patients at a family health care unit in the municipality of Jequié-BA. House calls were performed to obtain socio-demographic information and carry out the gustatory threshold for sweet taste test. The analysis of the data was realized using the programs Excel and SPSS. The gustatory threshold of 50 elderly people with an average age of 67.80 years (DP=5.4) and 70% females, was evaluated. The median for gustatory threshold for sweet taste was 4.06g/L, being 3.55g/L in hypertensive patients, 3.53g/L in diabetics and 5.07g/L in patients both diabetic and hypertensive. The gustatory threshold for sweet taste for elderly people registered in the hypertension and diabetes monitoring program is high. Elderly people with hypertension and diabetes showed a higher gustatory threshold when compared with individuals with hypertension or diabetes in isolation.