Ben Preiss
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 According to a recent study, the difference between people who crave chocolate and those who don’t, is that the cravers are host to bacteria that “need” that chocolate. Everybody has a very large and diverse population of bacteria living in their digestive tract. The composition of these populations varies from person to person. A recent British study found that half of people that suffer from depression crave chocolate and feel better when they eat it. Is that just the bacteria messing with their heads? I think the scientists have some work to do here.  If that craving for chocolate sometimes feels like it is coming from deep in your gut, that's because maybe it is.
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.
(news.wired)References: theaustralian.news.au, news.wired Comment: on Study: Chocolate Cravings Caused By Gut Bacteria? |
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