Microbes Control Food Habits

Marut

Food, Habit, Microbes

 

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Case Study 1
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During recent talk with my family, one shocking thing was discussed about fast food habit.

Some of my nephew’s friends are migrants. Well-to-do migrants from other states. Settling down in our city. So these families often eat outside. Almost everyday, something comes from outside. Junk or almost junk.

These kids don’t really like home cooked food now. Addicted to the taste of junk.

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Case Study 2
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One couple working in IT in pune I know.1 Gas cylinder works for almost 1 year for them. You can imagine their usage.

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Why are we so addicted to junk food?

Our gut microbes dictate what we eat. If you have a healthy gut, the microbes will direct you to foods that are required by your body for fitness. However if your gut microbes are disturbed they may start cravings for food that destroys your health. Parents of autistic children noticed food cravings in their children which aggravated their conditions. They then devised diets that controlled this and led to improved behavior. Many of them blamed the vaccines and the consequent use of antibiotics for vaccine after effects for this. They have been traditionally ridiculed for their ‘strange theories’ that don’t fit the industrial model of medicine. However researchers are now confirming what these ‘unscientific’ parents discovered.

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Now my dear doctor friends debate with me that it is safer to give antibiotics to avoid risks. What risks? Why are we so fearful and fear mongering? Why can’t doctor sense right condition and avoid unnecessary antibiotics and by that protect GUT microbes?

Or at least, think and prefer pause on your eating cravings. Even toxins rich food cooked at home is worth compare to junk/restaurant food.

Reason? When cooked at home, it is full of microbes suited to you and family. So relatively safe. Outside food?

All random, chaotic microbes with your food. You never know when they will alter your eating habits and control you like slave. 🙂

Read this if you are interested more.


Research


Is eating behavior manipulated by the gastrointestinal microbiota? Evolutionary pressures and potential mechanisms

MicrobesFoodHabit

Like microscopic puppetmasters, microbes may control the eating behavior of hosts through a number of potential mechanisms including microbial manipulation of reward pathways, production of toxins that alter mood (shown in pink, diffusing from a microbe), changes to receptors including taste receptors, and hijacking of neurotransmission via the vagus nerve (gray), which is the main neural axis between the gut and the brain.

 

Abstract

Microbes in the gastrointestinal tract are under selective pressure to manipulate host eating behavior to increase their fitness, sometimes at the expense of host fitness. Microbes may do this through two potential strategies: (i) generating cravings for foods that they specialize on or foods that suppress their competitors, or (ii) inducing dysphoria until we eat foods that enhance their fitness. We review several potential mechanisms for microbial control over eating behavior including microbial influence on reward and satiety pathways, production of toxins that alter mood, changes to receptors including taste receptors, and hijacking of the vagus nerve, the neural axis between the gut and the brain. We also review the evidence for alternative explanations for cravings and unhealthy eating behavior. Because microbiota are easily manipulatable by prebiotics, probiotics, antibiotics, fecal transplants, and dietary changes, altering our microbiota offers a tractable approach to otherwise intractable problems of obesity and unhealthy eating.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201400071/full

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