Medicine is one of the things that is needed for sick people
who are expected to provide healing for us.
When you have a mild illness such as fever, dizziness,
toothache, usually some people will immediately take medicine, especially for
people who are seriously ill, they will not be unfamiliar with the many
medicines that need to be taken.
Most of the existing drugs have a bitter taste, and only a
few have a sweet taste. Then, why do these medicines have to have a bitter
taste? Why not make it all sweet?
Actually, medicine is not made with a bitter taste, but from
the start medicine is made from ingredients that have a bitter taste.
Medicines with a sweet taste are usually formulated with
additional ingredients and sweeteners for several needs, such as syrup medicine
for children.
Drugs are poison in appropriate doses. Even a small amount
of medicine is given in insufficient doses, so the drug will not have an
effect, and vice versa, when the drug dose is excessive, the drug that used to
be able to heal will actually poison our bodies.
That's why we need a doctor to provide instructions, what
drug is right along with dosage recommendations.
In addition, there is also a good medicine that has a bitter
taste. Drugs with a bitter taste will prevent dependence or overdosage, it can
be dangerous if someone is addicted because it tastes good.
Humans can identify what substances can enter the body and
what cannot.
When talking about "taste". So far, there are five
tastes that can be recognized by humans, namely salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and
umami.
No single chemical compound can trigger more than one of
these five borderline taste receptors, and there is a pool of minimal number of
molecules that must be exposed to the receptors for the brain to recognize
these compounds in language.
Compounds that can cause a bitter taste have a very low
threshold, so only a small concentration of a bitter compound can trigger
bitter taste receptors to report to the brain.
This mechanism works very effectively as a reminder, to prevent
poison from entering the body.
Imagine if a dangerous substance like cyanide tastes sweet,
the tongue will need a large amount of cyanide concentration, to be able to
identify that there is a dangerous compound that is entering the body.
Meanwhile, medicinal ingredients that are toxic and
dangerous, such as ricin and cyanide all have the same, bitter taste.
But do you realize it or not, the bitter taste will last
longer than the sweet taste?
Bitter taste has 43 kinds of receptors, named TAS2R1 to
TAS2R50, including receptors that have different meanings. While the sweet
taste only has 3 kinds of receptors, which are named TAS1R1 to TAS1R3.
Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3772669/?fbclid=IwAR3MRXWfFxIgiB365q9Na-Syx0M74juymou8t9PBwu_4irFavASsWRZvyaQ
https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/46800?fbclid=IwAR0uf1ShnePR_4DwBuEgtQqfOBB0rIYYFGZThfZEIriGpnsGyn-msqJJG_0
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271644658_DESIGN_OF_PRODRUGS_TO_REPLACE_COMMONLY_USED_DRUGS_HAVING_BITTER_SENSATION?fbclid=IwAR3b6XdZIuZxwfs4jJ7DATwEeg_mxXSHzTYdunWZJAMruUNLXyBDZAoTURw
https://www.exsdee.com/2023/06/kenapa-kebanyakan-obat-memiliki-rasa.html
