Human food aversions

Scalera, G. 2002. Effects of conditioned food aversions on nutritional behavior in humans. Nutritional Neuroscience 5 159-188. 

The studies reviewed above indicate that experiences can have short-term effects upon food preferences and long-term effects upon food rejection. They do not, however, provide support for presumptions that early exposure to excessive sweets, for example, will create a sensory addiction in an organism. Instead, the sweet preferences shown by many species Including humans appear to be present at birth (95). Likewise, sodium chloride detection and the sodium appetite and the rejections of sour and bitter stimuli appear to be built-in, adaptive response tendencies which derive from sensory hedonlcs (96). Conditioned food aversions, though seemingly representing a rather... 

Other Systemic Effects. Adrenal fibrosis with lipid accumulation was reported in one study in mice, but these effects have not been observed in humans known to be exposed to heptachlor and have not been verified in other species. There has been no measurement of adrenal hormone in exposed humans or animals. Body weight changes have, in general, been accompanied by a decrease in food consumption, due possibly to taste aversion. 

Particularly alarming are fetal effects of alcohol and drugs on food-related odor responses in humans. Apart from the severe fetal alcohol syndrome, alcohol can affect the chemosensory behavior of a fetus. Alcohol administered to pregnant female rats impaired odor aversions and preferences in their offspring. A... 

Many factors are involved in the control of food intake. Some of the most important factors controlling the amount of food that we eat include environmental factors such as food availability, the characteristics of the food itself (e.g., smell, taste, our eating habits, learned preferences and aversions) as well as other psychological and social factors, including our lifestyle. Although these psychosocial factors are extremely important to the food intake patterns of humans, this section will concentrate on the physiological factors, primarily the role of fat in food intake. 

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