Susan Schiffman

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at North Carolina State University

Abstract—Multiple international standards organizations have developed standards for monitoring exposures to toxic chemicals and substances. The odor monitoring community has made contributions with various levels of success. The IEEE Standards Association, in collaboration with the IEEE Sensors Council and the International Society for Olfaction a...

The purpose of this study was to determine the toxicological and pharmacokinetic properties of sucralose-6-acetate, a structural analog of the artificial sweetener sucralose. Sucralose-6-acetate is an intermediate and impurity in the manufacture of sucralose, and recent commercial sucralose samples were found to contain up to 0.67% sucralose-6-acet...

The human olfactory system remains one of the most challenging biological systems to replicate. Humans use it without thinking, where it can equally offer protection from harm and bring enjoyment in equal measure. It is the system’s ability to detect and analyze complex odors, without the need for specialized infra-structure, that is the envy of ma...

IEEE standard development for E-Nose

Over the last two decades, safety concerns about low/no-calorie sweeteners (LNCS) have been described in the archival scientific literature including elevated risk of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, excessive weight gain, cardiovascular disease, safety, and disruption of the gut microbiome. A recent review by Lobach, Roberts, and Roland in Foo...

Demographic shifts in the global population are occurring rapidly with escalation in both the number and percentage of elderly persons (Cohen, 2003; Administration on Aging, 2015; He et al., 2016). Over 617 million people worldwide are currently 65 years of age or greater, and this number is expected to exceed 1.6 billion by 2050 (He et al., 2016)....

International standards have proven invaluable in the technology sector for developing functional and reliable products for the global marketplace. Standards provide performance criteria that technical engineers can use to design products to optimize the reliability and safety of new products. For example, standards have played a decisive role in t...

The aim of this study was to (1) determine if the organochlorine artificial sweetener sucralose is metabolized in rat intestine with repeated dosing and (2) examine whether sucralose might bioaccumulate in rat adipose tissue. Sucralose was administered to 10 rats by gavage daily for 40 days at an average dosage of 80.4 mg/kg/day. The dosages were w...

The artificial sweetener sucralose is an organochlorine compound that is used globally as a sugar substitute to sweeten foods, beverages, and medications. Sucralose disrupts the microbiome, induces first pass metabolism to levels that can interfere with drug absorption, reduces thyroid function, impairs blood sugar levels, causes histopathological...

Some adverse effects of sucralose as of 2018

Medications frequently have chemosensory side effects that can adversely affect compliance with medical treatment regimens. Hundreds of drugs have been reported to induce unpleasant tastes and/or odors as well as altered chemosensations when administered alone or in combination with other medications. Some chemosensory complaints are due to the sen...

A brief overview of the sensory properties of low calorie sweeteners commonly utilized in global markets. A look at how mixtures of multiple sweeteners can overcome the sensory limitations of using a single low-caloric sweetener in drinks and foods.

The of the quality of odors emitted from automobile cabin interiors is an important element for the design of vehicles that meet prospective customers' expectations. Extending our previous work on machine-versus-human odor assessment for intact automobile cabin interiors, in this paper, we evaluated odors generated from individual interior parts us...

Abstract—Odor quality in the cabin air of automobiles can be a significant factor in the decision to purchase a vehicle and the overall customer satisfaction with the vehicle over time. A current standard practice uses a human panel to rate the vehicle cabin odors on intensity, irritation, and pleasantness. However, human panels are expensive, time...

Artificial sweeteners (sucralose, ace-K, and saccharin) in the maternal diet of lactating mothers reaches the breast milk. The levels of sucralose reported in breast milk are high enough to increase the sweetness of breast milk. Babies have immature detoxification and clearance systems for sucralose, ace-K, and saccharin so these sweeteners may rem...

Four commercial e-nose instruments (Multisensor Systems, Alpha MOS, iSense, and Nordic Sensors Technologies) and a trained human panel tested cabin odors generated by heat cycling four new automobiles. Odor samples were collected at Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) and express-shipped to four university partners for analysis by an aggregate of 155 gas sen...

Hundreds of drugs encompassing all major therapeutic classes have been reported clinically to induce unpleasant and altered taste sensations when administered alone or in combination with other medications. This chapter focuses on six topics relevant to understanding the biological bases of drug-induced taste disorders. These include: interaction o...

Odor quality in the cabin air of automobiles can be a significant factor in the decision to purchase a vehicle and the overall customer satisfaction with the vehicle over time. A current standard practice uses a human panel to rate the vehicle cabin odors on intensity, irritation, and pleasantness. However, human panels are expensive, time-consumin...

Odor quality in the cabin air of automobiles can be a significant factor in the decision to purchase a vehicle and the overall customer satisfaction with the vehicle over time. Current standard practice uses a human panel to rate the vehicle cabin odors on intensity, irritation, and pleasantness. However, human panels are expensive, time-consuming...

Sucralose is a synthetic organochlorine sweetener (OC) that is a common ingredient in the world's food supply. Sucralose interacts with chemosensors in the alimentary tract that play a role in sweet taste sensation and hormone secretion. In rats, sucralose ingestion was shown to increase the expression of the efflux transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp...

The critiques of our sucralose study by Grotz and Munro (2009) and Brusick et al. (2009) are without merit. The so-called “Expert Panel” assembled by McNeil Nutritionals included individuals with undeclared conflicts of interest in violation of NIH and Elsevier guidelines. The claims by McNeil and its representatives are false. For a recent scienti...

High-potency or artificial sweeteners have historically been considered inert compounds without physiological consequences other than taste sensations. However, recent data suggest that some of these sweeteners have biological effects that may impact human health. Furthermore, there are significant gaps in our current knowledge of the pharmacokinet...

Worldwide, the segment of the population aged 65 years and above is escalating rapidly and is expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2050. This increase in elderly persons presents many global challenges including addressing perceptual changes in the sense of taste that can reduce quality of life, increase the risk from food poisoning, and lead to inadeq...

Taste disorders

Losses in taste perception as well as distortions of gustatory function occur with greater frequency in older individuals, and these changes are exacerbated by certain medical conditions, pharmacologic interventions, radiation, and exposure to toxic chemicals. Medications, especially drug-drug interactions, are the most significant yet underappreci...

The sensory properties of foods influence food choices and provide cues about a food’s nutritional value. Sensory signals from food elicit salivary, gastric acid, and pancreatic secretions associated with digestion and ultimately absorption of nutrients. Taste and smell are especially important in activating these digestive secretions because the t...

The effectiveness of 18 alternative technologies for reducing odor dispersion at and beyond the boundary of swine facilities was assessed in conjunction with an initiative sponsored through agreements between the Attorney General of North Carolina and Smithfield Foods, Premium Standard Farms, and Frontline Farmers. The trajectory and spatial distri...

Odors can affect health and quality of life. Industrialized animal agriculture creates odorant compounds that are components of a mixture of agents that could trigger symptoms reported by neighbors of livestock operations. We quantified swine odor episodes reported by neighbors and the relationships of these episodes with environmental measurements...

Neotame is a high potency sweetener with a molecular formula of C 20H30N2O5. It is over 11,000 times sweeter by weight than sucrose at a sweetness equivalent to 5% sucrose (in water). Neotame reaches a maximum sweetness intensity equivalent to 15.1% sucrose. The temporal properties of neotame, like all other high potency sweeteners, differ somewhat...

Splenda is comprised of the high-potency artificial sweetener sucralose (1.1%) and the fillers maltodextrin and glucose. Splenda was administered by oral gavage at 100, 300, 500, or 1000 mg/kg to male Sprague-Dawley rats for 12-wk, during which fecal samples were collected weekly for bacterial analysis and measurement of fecal pH. After 12-wk, half...

Abnormalities in taste and smell functioning occur with elevated frequency in both older adults and patients with cancer. With the predicted increase in both of these populations in the coming decades, it is imperative to evaluate potential interventions that are designed to help older cancer patients compensate for the additive burden of this dise...

Impairments of sensory perception that occur during a period of critical care can seriously impact on health and nutritional status, activities of daily living, independence, quality of life and the possibility of recovery. It is emphasized from the outset that sensory losses in critically-ill patients may or may not be related to their current med...

The purpose of the current study was to determine what effect, if any, the blending of sweeteners has on the time to maximum sweetness intensity of sweeteners. In this study that is comprised of three separate experiments, trained panelists evaluated the time to maximum sweetness intensity of sweeteners tested in both binary and ternary combination...

The loss of smell and taste commonly occurs in elderly persons. It can result from normal aging, certain disease states (especially Alzheimer's disease), medications, surgical interventions, and environmental exposure. This article describes the diagnostic terms used to classify these losses and the extent of the losses at threshold and suprathresh...

The focus of this study is to find the appropriateness of the Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) neural network (NN) training algorithm for recognition of odor patterns associated with an electronic nose (e-nose). Multiple time-patterns represent step response of the array of sensors to the odorants. The experiments are performed on four representative class...

Aerial emissions from a swine house at North Carolina State University's field laboratory were diluted to a level that could occur at varying distances downwind from a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) both within and beyond the property line, and these emissions were delivered to an environmental exposure chamber. The study design consisted...

Complaints of health symptoms from ambient odors have become more frequent in communities with confined animal facilities, wastewater treatment plants, and biosolids recycling operations. The most frequently reported health complaints include eye, nose, and throat irritation, headache, nausea, diarrhea, hoarseness, sore throat, cough, chest tightne...

A Eulerian-Lagrangian model was used to predict the trajectory and spatial distribution of odor and odorants downwind from an industrial facility with multiple sources of odor emissions. Specifically, the model was used to simulate the dispersion of odor from a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) under different meteorological conditions: (1)...

1 Schiffman, S. S.; Graham, B. G.; DuBose, P. A.; Williams, C. M. Odor dispersion modeling from swine operations with conventional and alternative waste treatment technologies.

Historically, unpleasant odors have been considered warning signs or indicators of potential risks to human health but not necessarily direct triggers of health effects. However, citizen complaints to public health agencies suggest that odors may not simply serve as a warning of potential risks but that odor sensations themselves may cause health s...

Tunnel ventilation of swine buildings conveys odorous dust and gases out of the production buildings. Measurement of dust and odor levels and other environmental parameters is necessary for characterizing emissions and evaluating control options. During evaluations of odor control systems, measurements of dust and odor levels in building inlet and...

Repeated sensory and cognitive testing is needed to get accurate measurements in the elderly

The authors evaluated whether exposure to malodor from industrial hog farming operations has a psychophysiologically mediated immunosuppressive effect on secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) in neighbors. Fifteen adults living within 2.4 km (1.5 mi) of at least one hog farming operation rated odor intensity on a 9-point scale and provided saliva sampl...

Complaints of health symptoms from ambient odors have become more frequent in communities with confined animal facilities, wastewater treatment plants, and biosolids recycling operations. The most frequently reported health complaints include eye, nose, and throat irritation, headache, nausea, diarrhea, hoarseness, sore throat, cough, chest tightne...

The Carbofil® biological reactor is a type of down-draft reactor that uses impellers to entrain oxygen and increase the opportunity for that oxygen to dissolve in wastewater. The oxygen is used for oxidation of organic matter as well as for nitrification. The system flow scheme through an anoxic reactor provides opportunity for denitrification of n...

Neural networks

Smell and behavior

Prediction of odor from swine facilities

The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of repeated presentation of the same sweet stimulus on sweetness intensity ratings. The sweet stimuli tested in this study were binary and ternary blends of 14 sweeteners that varied widely in chemical structure. A trained panel evaluated the sweetness intensity over four sips of a given...

"Electronic noses" are instruments which mimic the sense of smell. Consisting of olfactory sensors and a suitable signal processing unit, they are able to detect and distinguish odors precisely and at low cost. This makes them very useful for a remarkable variety of applications in the food and pharmaceutical industry, in environmental control or c...

This chapter provides an overview of the decrements in taste, smell, vision, hearing, and touch in elderly persons, as well as how these sensory changes impact nutritional status. The role of medications in these losses will be addressed.

Taste enhancers

Significant losses in taste perception can occur with advancing age, and these losses can contribute to inadequate food intake leading to malnutrition and weight loss. Both experimental data and clinical reports suggest that medications play a major role in age-related chemosensory changes. Over 250 drugs have been reported clinically to affect the...

Over 20 years have elapsed since aspartame was approved by regulatory agencies as a sweetener and flavor enhancer. The safety of aspartame and its metabolic constituents was established through extensive toxicology studies in laboratory animals, using much greater doses than people could possibly consume. Its safety was further confirmed through st...

Systematic research on delusional disorder (DD) is limited. The goal of this study was to assess DD patients in the following areas: sensory capacities, decision-making style, and complex reasoning. Ten DD patients and 10 matched normal controls completed the following (1) smell, taste, and vision testing; (2) a probabilistic inference test in whic...

The purpose of the study was to determine whether there are chemosensory and neuropsychological changes that predate the onset of Alzheimer's disease in individuals at enhanced risk of developing the condition. To study this question, a unique sample of individuals (n = 33) was studied who were genetically at-risk for AD by virtue of documented mul...

This chapter describes the changes in the senses of taste and smell that occur with advancing age. The incidence of taste and smell disorders will increase significantly over the coming decades due to the rapid growth in the elderly segment of the population. Furthermore, elderly individuals will likely experience taste and smell losses for a great...

This paper addresses the problem of predicting human olfactory ratings from instrumental measurements. Specifically, the paper analyzes the ability of two commercially-available electronic nose instruments (the NST 3320 and the Cyranose® 320) and three other sensing devices (a photoionization detector, a gold-film sulfur sensor, and an infrared las...

A facility to expose human subjects to odorous, dusty air from a swine building, which is diluted with filtered, clean air, was developed. This paper describes the facility design, including exposure room, air handling and measurement, medical evaluation annex, HVAC, air filtration, and mixing chamber, as well as approaches which allow complete cle...

This paper addresses the problem of predicting human olfactory ratings from instrumental measurements, specifically a photoionization detector.

Effects of cardiovascular drugs on taste

Two experiments were performed to measure the intensity of fecal odors in several species. The purpose of the first experiment was to determine the effect of a food additive on odor of dog and cat feces. The purpose of the second experiment was to determine if odor intensity is affected by the size of particulates (dried fecal matter, etc) emitted...

The enhancement of smell and taste sensations (flavor) of food can improve palatability, increase total intensity, and potentially reduce the cost of ingredients of foods for the general population.

A total of 331 different VOCs and fixed gases from swine facilities in North Carolina were identified by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Of these, 203 were found in air samples adsorbed onto Tenax®, 112 were found in air samples adsorbed onto cotton material, and 167 different compounds were identified in the lagoon samples. The c...

In this project, an AromaScan A32S electronic nose and a human panel at the Duke Taste and Smell Lab were used to evaluate the effectiveness of biofilters in reducing the malodors in the exhaust air from swine confinement facilities. Three experiments are reported: 1) detection threshold tests for the electronic nose and human panel for a significa...

Growth of microbial organisms such as bacteria and fungi generates volatile organic compounds and fixed gases. An electronic nose consisting of 15 metal-oxide sensors (NC State E-Nose) was used to detect and classify bacteria and fungi. Three preliminary experiments were conducted with the electronic nose using odorous stimuli related to microbial...

This article presents an evaluation of the electronic nose technology as an alternative to sensory analysis for assessing the effectiveness of biofilters. An AromaScan ® A32S electronic nose and a human panel at Duke University's Taste and Smell Research Lab were used to measure typical volatile compounds from swine confinement buildings. Chemometr...

Introduction The rapid proliferation over the last decade of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) has raised concerns about health effects of aerial emissions from animal production and waste management systems. These aerial emissions are predominantly a mixture of hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S), ammonia (NH 3), volatile organic compounds (VOCs...

Oral habituation is a relatively long-lasting decrease in oral responsiveness that results from the repeated presentation of a single stimulus. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the degree of habituation to sweet-tasting foods and to determine whether there are differences in the rate of habituation between African Americans and European Am...

In clinical reports, HIV-infected patients complain that antiretroviral drugs produce unpleasant tastes that affect compliance with their medication regimen. In this study, taste effects of seven antiretroviral drugs (protease inhibitors and nucleoside analogs) were investigated in a gerbil model. Electrophysiological recordings were obtained from...

The losses in taste and smell that occur with advancing age can lead to poor appetite, inappropriate food choices, as well as decreased energy consumption. Decreased energy consumption can be associated with impaired protein and micronutrient status and may induce subclinical deficiencies that directly impact function. Most nutritional intervention...

Elderly individuals and HIV-infected patients have a disproportionate number of taste complaints relative to the general population, and these taste alterations are correlated with the use of medications. Clinical reports of taste disorders have been associated with many drugs, including antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory medications. The purpose...

The purpose of the present study was to determine the degree of synergism of sweet taste among ternary mixtures of 14 sweeteners. A trained panel evaluated ternary mixtures of 14 sweeteners varying in chemical structure and type. The ternary mixtures that were tested were limited to those in which the compounds comprising the mixture were synergist...

One of the side effects of antidepressant pharmacotherapy reported clinically is impairment of the sense of taste. In this study, the taste effects of four tricyclic antidepressant compounds (clomipramine HCl, desipramine HCl, doxepin HCl, and imipramine HCl) were evaluated experimentally by topical application of the drugs to the tongue. Taste det...

Taste and smell losses in the elderly can reduce appetite and lead to inadequate dietary intake. Although these chemosensory deficits are generally not reversible, sensory interventions including intensification of taste and odor can compensate for perceptual losses. One method for "treatment" of chemosensory losses involves sensory enhancement of...

Historically, taste research has often been guided by the concept that there are only four (or possibly five) basic taste qualities (sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, and possibly "umami"). All other tastes have been presumed to be combinations of these basic tastes. This psychophysical concept has been extended to electrophysiological data. That is,...

We conducted two experiments to determine the effects of dietary copper concentration and source on odor characteristics of swine waste. In both experiments, 192 weanling gilts and barrows were allotted to 24 pens. Pens were randomly assigned to one of six dietary treatments, consisting of control (10 ppm Cu as cupric sulfate, CuSO4), 66 or 225 ppm...

Historically, taste research has often been guided by the concept that there are only four (or possibly five) basic taste qualities (sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, and possibly “umami”). All other tastes have been presumed to be combinations of these basic tastes. This psychophysical concept has been extended to electrophysiological data. That is,...

The purpose of the present study was to determine the degree of synergism of sweet taste among ternary mixtures of 14 sweeteners. A trained panel evaluated ternary mixtures of 14 sweeteners varying in chemical structure and type. The ternary mixtures that were tested were limited to those in which the compounds comprising the mixture were synergist...

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the effects of temperature (50 degrees C and 6 degrees C), pH (pH 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6. 0, and 7.0) and the addition of monovalent and divalent cations (5 mM Na(+), 5 mM K(+), and 5 mM Ca(2)+ ) on the sweetness intensity ratings of sweeteners ranging widely in chemical structure. A trained panel provided...

Medications used to treat cardiovascular diseases such as congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, and arrhythmia, are prescribed extensively in Western countries. However, taste complaints are common side effects of many of these cardiovascular medications. Although clinical observations are helpful in determining potential taste problems fr...

Odor is an unwanted consequence of municipal waste processing and disposal of sludge. Anaerobic digestion of sludge generates a broad range of odorants during the treatment process. In the first stage (acid fermentation), sugars, lipids, colloidal solids, and dissolved carbonaceous matter are converted to organic acids with the evolution of H 2S an...