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Pilot Study of Taste Sensations in Patients With End-stage Renal Disease on Hemodialysis

Completed
Conditions
End Stage Renal Disease
Registration Number
NCT03495271
Lead Sponsor
Purdue University
Brief Summary

Individuals on dialysis due to kidney failure have very prescriptive diets. These diets help increase dialysis effectiveness and help patients control blood levels of electrolytes including potassium and phosphate, acid-base balance, blood pressure, and fluid between dialysis treatments. However, patient compliance with these diets often can be very low, and one reason for this low compliance is disguesia (abnormal taste sensations) which can make the diets unpalatable. This experiment tests the hypothesis that disguesia, and subsequent lack of adherence to a dialysis friendly diet, is a result of either vascular taste (tasting your own blood through the basolateral side of taste cells) or altered chemical composition of saliva in between dialysis appointments. However, to study these hypotheses, data are needed on the types of substances that may contribute to the disguesia. Substances for which the concentration is influenced by kidney function (in healthy people) or dialysis (in patients) are the prime candidates for the disguesia under our hypotheses. Thus, this experiment tests whether taste or flavours experienced from sodium, calcium, potassium, creatinine, urea, phosphates, glutamate, and iron may be related to altered taste experienced by patients on dialysis.

Detailed Description

A. Background:

Individuals on dialysis due to kidney failure have very prescriptive diets. These diets help increase dialysis effectiveness and help patients control blood levels of electrolytes including potassium and phosphate, acid-base balance, blood pressure, and fluid between dialysis treatments. However, patient compliance with these diets is often very low, and one reason for this low compliance is disguesia (abnormal taste sensations) which can make the diets unpalatable. The investigators hypothesize this disguesia, and subsequent lack of adherence to a dialysis friendly diet, is a result of either vascular taste (tasting one's own blood through the basolateral side of taste cells) or altered chemical composition of saliva in between dialysis appointments. However, to study these hypotheses, data are needed on the types of substances that may contribute to the disguesia. Substances for which the concentration is influenced by kidney function (in healthy people) or dialysis (in patients) are the prime candidates for the disguesia under our hypotheses.

B. Objectives:

The investigators will study how dialysis patients perceive sodium, calcium, potassium, creatinine, urea, phosphate, glutamate (umami taste), and iron solutions, and whether alterations in saliva may contribute to altered sensations from these compounds. These solutions will be used to:

1. Determine whether dialysis patients recognize the flavour of specific stimuli as similar to the disguesias experienced between dialysis treatments.

2. Determine if the intensity of the flavour from these solutions is more or less intense at the beginning of dialysis compared to the end.

3. Determine if patients' ratings for the solutions differ from healthy, control individuals.

4. Determine if saliva of patients contains different concentrations of analytes such as sodium, potassium, creatinine, urea, phosphates, iron, or glutamates from healthy controls.

5. Determine if concentrations of these analytes in saliva decrease over the course of dialysis treatment.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
55
Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Study Design
Not specified
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Taste perception1 day

Assess effect of dialysis on taste perceptions of solutions via sensory questionnaire. The scale used will be a generalized visual analog scale, which will ask participants about the intensity and hedonic quality of the sensations experienced. The scale ranges from 0 to 100 and are rated by the individuals when tasting the samples.

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Purdue University

🇺🇸

West Lafayette, Indiana, United States

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