Dear Sir

A report appeared in the newspapers regarding the association of build and three levels of taste for 6-n-propyl 2-thiourasil. I believe it originated with the AAS but I can obtain no further reference.

Quite by chance I have recorded the same three levels of taste (very bitter, bitter and nothing) together with an estimation of “by eye” of the adult body form - ie leptomorph, mesoeurymorph and eurymorph.

In the report the very bitter tasters were called “supertasters”. In my usual group of Pembrokeshire family 19.9% (of 151 persons: 74 female) were supertasters.

My estimation of their shapes was obviously rough and ready but the distribution was as follows:

To make it more practical I lumped them into two groups:

Strong tasting tends to go with linearity as in the original report. This is not a very cerebral piece of research, pure serendipity, but it may encourage someone to go ahead with this line of investigation since it has been recorded twice quite independently.

Patrick F James