Sweet, savoriness, and bitter tastes are triggered by the binding of molecules to G protein-coupled receptors on the cell membranes of taste buds. Saltiness and sourness are perceived when alkali metal or hydrogen ions enter taste buds, respectively.The basic taste modalities contribute only partially to the sensation and flavor of food in the mouth—other factors include smell, detected by the olfactory epithelium of the nose; texture, detected through a variety of mechanoreceptors, muscle nerves, etc. ; temperature, detected by thermoreceptors; and "coolness" (such as of menthol) and "hotness" (pungency), through chemesthesis. As the gustatory system senses both harmful and beneficial things, all basic taste modalities are classified as either aversive or appetitive, depending upon the effect the things they sense have on our bodies. Sweetness helps to identify energy-rich foods, while bitterness serves as a warning sign of poisons.Among humans, taste perception begins to fade at an older age because of loss of tongue papillae and a general decrease in saliva production. Humans can also have distortion of tastes (dysgeusia). Not all mammals share the same taste modalities: some rodents can taste starch (which humans cannot), cats cannot taste sweetness, and several other carnivores including hyenas, dolphins, and sea lions, have lost the ability to sense up to four of their ancestral five taste modalities. Basic tastes
The gustatory system allows animals to distinguish between safe and harmful food, and to gauge foods’ nutritional value.
Acid suppression is also useful when gastric production of acid is increased, including conditions with excess gastric acid secretion (hypersecretory conditions) like Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, multiple endocrine adenomas, and systemic mastocytosis.Rabeprazole is also useful alongside antibiotic therapy for the treatment of the pathogen Helicobacter pylori, which otherwise thrives in acidic environments. Notably, H. pylori eradication with antibiotics and rabeprazole was also shown to prevent development of second gastric cancer in a randomized trial in high-risk South Korean patients with early stomach cancer treated by endoscopy.Thus, rabeprazole is US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for the treatment of symptomatic GERD in adolescents and adults, healing duodenal ulcers in adults, eradication of Helicobacter pylori, and pathologic hypersecretory conditions. Available forms
Rabeprazole is available in 10 and 20 mg, delayed-release tablets (pictured below). Rabeprazole-based products, like other proton pump inhibitor products, have to be formulated in delayed-release tablets to protect the active medication from being degraded by the acid of the stomach before being absorbed. Specific populations
Pediatrics
Rabeprazoles only pediatric indication is for the treatment of symptomatic GERD in adolescents (12 years-old and up). Pregnancy
Studies using animals models to investigate the likelihood for rabeprazole to cause harm to fetuses have not yet shown evidence of harm, though avoidance of rabeprazole during pregnancy (especially during the critical development period of the first trimester) is considered to be the safest possible route until human studies clarify the exact risk. Lactation
It is expected that rabeprazole will be secreted into human breast milk, though the clinical impact of this is still unknown.