{"id":416,"date":"2003-03-04T04:28:43","date_gmt":"2003-03-04T04:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=416"},"modified":"2011-05-01T18:35:17","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T23:35:17","slug":"no-more-bitter-pills-to-swallow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=416","title":{"rendered":"no more bitter pills to swallow?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Linguagen Corp., a biotechnology firm based in New  Jersey, has developed and patented a family of compounds that can block  the taste of bitter medicines and foods, <em>New Scientist<\/em> reported last  week. The &#8220;bitter blockers&#8221; work by blocking the production of a protein  called gustducin, which is released by taste-receptor cells in the  mouth when they detect a bitter substance. Gustducin sparks a series of  reactions that results in a nerve impulse to the brain signaling a  bitter taste. The researchers aren&#8217;t exactly sure how the blockers work,  but think that the compounds bond to the mouth&#8217;s bitter-taste  receptors, inhibiting gustducin&#8217;s release. If Linguagen&#8217;s blockers prove  to be safe and effective, they could make drugs and bitter-flavored  foods such as broccoli and grapefruit more palatable, as well as reduce  the huge amounts of fat, salt, and sugar needed to mask the bitter taste  of processed foods. <\/span><\/p>\n<h6><em>This news brief appeared in the Random Data column of the <\/em>Boston Globe&#8217;s<em> Health\/Science section on 3\/04\/2003.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Linguagen Corp., a biotechnology firm based in New Jersey, has developed and patented a family of compounds that can block the taste of bitter medicines and foods, New Scientist reported last week. The &#8220;bitter blockers&#8221; work by blocking the production &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=416\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boston-globe-3","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1226,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/1226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}