Yeah, you do, and with good reason. There is such an extensive nervous system lining the digestive tract (the enteric nervous system) that some researchers have taken to calling it a second brain. The longest nerve in the body, the vagus nerve, runs from the base of the skull all the way down to the abdomen and encompasses several organs along the way, including the heart and lungs. Interestingly, 90% of messages carried between the brain and digestive system along the vagus nerve only travel one way. You would be inclined to think top to bottom? Other way round. The folks who discovered this were fairly shocked too!
Why do I bring this up? I just read a really interesting article in an alternative medicine journal that
questions whether our intestinal flora (aka gut bacteria or microbiome) actually manipulate us into eating what THEY want. Your internal ecosystem is an incredibly diverse population. Generally you hear of the microbiome divided into "good" bacteria (eg - the lactobacillus organisms) and "bad" bacteria (eg - e.coli). Now, they all have their place and are all necessary for the continued optimum function of the ecosystem and thus the organism. Problems arise when a particular type of bacteria find themselves outnumbering the other types. When the "bad" bacteria are in charge, it appears that they can be capable of sending messages up the vagus nerve to make us crave the foods they feed on, mostly fat and sugar.
When I was in school and during clinical practice, it was often mentioned by my teachers that we would find that the foods people were craving were the very ones that were causing their problems. I always thought this was so counterproductive to the function of the human body and could never quite understand how this could be so. Could this be the answer? Are those naughty bacteria making us eat twinkies?
The human body never ceases to amaze me in its simultaneous simplicity and complexity.
What do you think?
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