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Acree, T.E., Shallenberger, R.S., and Ebeling, S.

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Thirty Years of AH-B Theory,

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Thirty years ago two of us (Shallenberger & Acree) published a paper entitled the "Molecular Theory of Sweet Taste" in Nature[1]. The model developed in that paper for sweetness was based on a structure-activity relationship between the simplest sweet tasting compounds and their structural features of the stimulants and has become known as the AH-B theory. The theory described with considerable success the structural features necessary for sweetness but it was not sufficient to predict sweetness. That is, not all compounds that satisfied the theory tasted sweet nor was the theory able to predict potency level especially for the very high potency sweetners subsequently synthesized. However, all sweet compounds seemed to have an identifiable AH-B feature. This paper will review the last thirty years in sweetness research ad discuss the role of the AH-B theory in its development.

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