Got food cravings? What’s living in your gut may be responsible
I didn't realize this until recently, but we don't actually know every chemical compound that's in our blood. As in, I don't believe there has been a study that takes 1 liter of blood and just documents every chemical structure found (at any concentration).<p>Realizing that + learning about the seemingly vast gut microbiome has definitely led me to feel more humbled about what we know and can predict about human biology.<p>I now think it's possible (but certainly not proven) that some hard to anticipate cascade of compounds (produced by gut, or foods, or environmental, or whatever) could be responsible for significantly increasing subjective feelings of hunger across the population at large, and this could lead to more calories being eaten than needed.<p>I'm actually optimistic that this has happened, because then there might be an effective way to reverse the health problems we see... much like removing leaded gasoline seems to have helped reduce crime rates.