Life Sciences Gut bacteria influence our food choices

[Second Summer]

It sounds like science fiction, but it seems that bacteria within us — which outnumber our own cells about 100-fold — may very well be affecting both our cravings and moods to get us to eat what they want, and often are driving us toward obesity.

In an article published this week in the journal BioEssays, researchers from UC San Francisco, Arizona State University and University of New Mexico concluded from a review of the recent scientific literature that microbes influence human eating behavior and dietary choices to favor consumption of the particular nutrients they grow best on, rather than simply passively living off whatever nutrients we choose to send their way.

Read more: Do gut bacteria rule our minds? | University of California (University of California, 15. Aug. 2014)

It sounds like more research in this area has great potential for helping an enormous amount of people with disordered eating, and also prevent other diseases that come as a result of this.

 

[ledboots]

Very interesting article. About a decade ago, my elderly mother was having gut issues, and I got her a probiotic. She said that she felt happier when she took them, that they affected her moods. She still takes them because of that, not because of her intestines. She is going to love this article!

 

[Blobbenstein]

my gut bacteria seem to like pasta, and white bread.

 

[Second Summer]

"Sorry I ate up all your cake, darling. My gut biota made me do it!"

 

[flyingsnail]

I would doubt this has much to do with eating disorders and/or obesity. Much of the junk people eat today doesn't leave much for gut bacteria and refined foods contain a subset of what whole foods contain. So, for example, if some class of gut bacteria thrived on the starch from grains then they should be satisfied with whole or refined grains. Yet the vast majority are eating refined grains. Psychological factors, like addiction, already provide a reasonable model for the issues we see today......its just not an explanation people usually want to hear.