Is fructose sweeter than glucose for rats?

Because it is generally thought that the intensity of the taste of fructose is greater than that of glucose for rats, it seemed surprising when sham-fed rats drank substantially less of a mixture of 6% fructose plus saccharin than of a mixture of 6% glucose plus saccharin. At least 3 different factors contribute to this effect. First, the taste of fructose is less attractive to rats than is the taste of glucose; sham-fed rats strongly preferred glucose over fructose (no saccharin was used in this experiment). The second factor is experience. Rats having substantial previous experience with glucose, but not with fructose, consistently preferred glucose over fructose. Conversely, rats having substantial previous experience with fructose, but not with glucose, initially showed no consistent preference but subsequently tended to prefer glucose. The third factor is an interaction between saccharin and the type of sugar. Rats given only one solution at a time drink approximately as much fructose as glucose when the solutions contain no saccharin. The addition of 0.25% saccharin to 6% glucose stimulated intake, whereas the addition of the same amount of saccharin to 6% fructose did not stimulate intake. As a result, rats ingested substantially more of a mixture of 0.25% saccharin plus 6% glucose than they did of a comparable mixture of saccharin and fructose, even though rats ingest similar amounts of fructose and glucose without saccharin in single-bottle tests. Because the differential effect of saccharin on intake appeared within 2 h in naive rats, and did not greatly change over a 3-day period, it is probably not attributable to conditioning. These results suggest that these sugars have qualitatively different tastes.