Oct. 10, 2008 Toxins in food often have a bad, bitter taste that
makes people want to spit them out. New UC Irvine research finds
that bitterness also slows the digestive process, keeping bad
food in the stomach longer and increasing the chances that it
will be expelled. This second line of defense in the gut against
dietary toxins also triggers the production of a hormone that
makes people feel full, presumably to keep them from eating more
of the toxic food. This discovery has the potential to help
scientists develop better therapies for ailments ranging from
cancer to diabetes, and it may explain why certain isolated
populations around the world have adapted to eat and enjoy local
foods that taste bad to outsiders and make them sick. The study,
appearing online Oct. 9 in the Journal of Clinical
Investigation, was performed with mice, and the results probably
translate to humans, said Timothy Osborne, molecular biology and
biochemistry professor and study senior author. "We have evolved
mechanisms to combat