Study: Gut, not sweet tooth, to blame for diet failures

Study: Gut, not sweet tooth, to blame for diet failures


If you’ve been blaming your sweet tooth in moments of candy-bar weakness, you probably owe your mouth an apology.

Turns out, your gut may be to blame. As researchers from Duke University recently reported, cells in our intestines distinguish between real sugar and sugar substitutes and they complain to our brains in an instant when they don’t get the real thing.

Twenty years ago, scientists identified sweet taste receptors in the mouths of lab mice, and tried to turn them off by knocking out those taste buds. But they were surprised when the mice could still tell the difference — and continue to show preference for — sugar over artificial sweetener.

That’s because their guts, rather than their tongues, were doing the sensing.

The researchers discovered that specialized neuropod cells in the lining of the upper gut of mice and humans send neurotransmitter signals that reach the brain within milliseconds.

Understanding the gut-brain connection may lead to entirely new ways of treating disease. When the researchers learned how to turn off the neuropod cells in the gut of a mouse, the rodent no longer preferred sugar over artificial sweetener.

The researchers hope their work will provide a foundation for studying how other stimuli — such as fats or proteins — are sensed in the intestine and how they influence our food decisions.

But, for now, it may provide some comfort to those trying unsuccessfully to curtail sugar cravings with substitutes like saccharin, sucralose or aspartame (a-spr-taym) to know how much of a factor our gut plays in deciding whether the substitutes really satisfy.

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