The News:
Study links chocolate yen to gut bacteria
By Seth Borenstein The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 10/12/2007 02:20:18 AM MDT
If that chocolate craving sometimes feels as if it is coming from deep in your gut, maybe it is.
A study links the type of bacteria living in people's digestive system to a desire for chocolate. Everyone has a vast community of microbes in their guts. But people who crave chocolate daily show signs of having different colonies of bacteria than those immune to chocolate's allure.
That may be the case for other foods too. The idea could eventually lead to treating some types of obesity by changing the composition of the trillions of bacteria in the intestines and stomach, said Sunil Kochhar, co-author of the study, which appears today in the Journal of Proteome Research.
Still to be determined is whether the bacteria cause the craving or whether one's diet changed the bacteria, which then reinforced food choices.
The Research:
Read the research behind this study in the Journal of Proteome Research.
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1 comment:
Eating is a topic in the chapter on Motivation in General Psychology 101. The main point to be garnered being the complexity of the biological, emotional and sociocultural influences on eating behavior. This is a good addition to our understanding of that complexity and a nice hint about the possible sources of cravings.
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