Lungs have bitter taste receptors

The ability to taste is not limited to the mouth, and researchers say that discovery might one day lead to better treatments for diseases such as asthma.

It turns out that receptors for bitter tastes are also found in the smooth muscles of the lungs and airways. These muscles relax when they're exposed to bitter tastes, according to researchers from the University of Maryland College of Medicine in Baltimore.

Dr Stephen B Liggett, a lung expert, noted that bitter tastes often are associated with poisonous plants, causing people to avoid them. He added that when non-toxic bitter compounds were tested on mice and on human airways in the laboratory, they "all opened the airway more profoundly than any known drug that we have for treatment of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease".