Relationship Between Taste Threshold for Drugs and Clinical Progress in a Mixed Group of Psychiatric Patients

¹ Research Assistant, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, London Hospital Medical College, P.O.B. 242, Jesselton, Sabah, Malaysia.
² Consultant Psychiatrist, Claybury Hospital, Woodford Green, Essex
³ Medical Department, CIBA, Basle, CH4000. Switzerland

Three hypotheses concerning the relationship between taste threshold for psychotropic drugs and their clinical effectiveness have been studied in a sample of forty admissions to one firm of a psychiatric hospital, and a control group of twenty members of the staff.

Two hypotheses were supported: patient taste thresholds were higher than those of the controls, and were reduced as their clinical state improved. The taste thresholds of the controls were unaltered during the passage of an equivalent period of time. The third hypothesis—that the relative threshold of an individual patient could be used to predict the degree of success achieved by treatment with that drug—was not confirmed, perhaps because the sample was small and contained examples of many diagnostic groups.

Differences in sex and smoking habits, however, did not interfere with a significant tendency to general association between degree of clinical improvement and change in threshold for all four drugs. Significant correlations between the initial severity of the illness and the four taste thresholds were similarly unaffected by smoking.

The observations are discussed in terms of clinical usefulness and pharmacological significance.