Ch-c-l-t- craving bacteria (repost from 10/30/09)

[Guest guest]

MLA: And not only do they explain chocolate cravings, the closing comment

is incredibly important to SCD.

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/10/12/1019885-scientists-explain-chocolate-cravings

Scientists Explain Chocolate CravingsFri Oct 12, 2007

12:17 AM EDT

WASHINGTON ­ If that

craving for chocolate sometimes feels like it is coming from deep in your

gut, that's because maybe it is.

A small 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 daily chocolate show signs

of having different colonies of bacteria than people who are 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 occupying the intestines and stomach, said Sunil

Kochhar, co-author of the study. It appears Friday in the peer-reviewed

Journal of Proteome Research.

Kochhar is in charge of metabolism research at the Nestle Research Center

in Lausanne, Switzerland. The food conglomerate Nestle SA paid for the

study. But this isn't part of an effort to convert a few to the dark side

(or even milk) side of cocoa, Kocchar said.

In fact, the study was delayed because it took a year for the researchers

to find 11 men who don't eat chocolate.

Kochhar compared the blood and urine of those 11 men, who he jokingly

called " weird " for their indifference to chocolate, to 11

similar men who ate chocolate daily. They were all healthy, not obese,

and were fed the same food for five days.

The researchers examined the byproducts of metabolism in their blood and

urine and found that a dozen substances were significantly different

between the two groups. For example, the amino acid glycine was higher in

chocolate lovers, while taurine (an active ingredient in energy drinks)

was higher in people who didn't eat chocolate. Also chocolate lovers had

lower levels of the bad cholesterol, LDL.

The levels of several of the specific substances that were different in

the two groups are known to be linked to different types of bacteria,

Kochhar said.

Still to be determined is if the bacteria cause the craving, or if early

in life people's diets changed the bacteria, which then reinforced food

choices.

How gut bacteria affect people is a hot field of scientific

research.

Past studies have shown that intestinal bacteria change when people lose

weight, said Dr. Sam Klein, an obesity expert and professor of medicine

at Washington University in St. Louis.

Since bacteria interact with what you eat, it is logical to think that

there is a connection between those microbes and desires for certain

foods, said Klein, who wasn't part of Kochhar's study.

Kochhar's research makes so much sense that people should have thought of

it earlier, said J. Bruce German, professor of food chemistry at the

University of California . While five outside scientists thought the

study was intriguing, Dr. Bergman at the University of Southern

California School of Medicine, had concerns about the accuracy of the

initial division of the men into groups that wanted chocolate or were

indifferent to it.

What matters to Kochhar is where the research could lead.

Kochhar said the relationship between food, people and what grows in

their gut is important for the future: " If we understand the

relationship, then we can find ways to nudge it in the right

direction. "

___

—

Marilyn

New

Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

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