Gut bacteria are not polite dinner guests. They fill up fast and tell their host to quit eating, too.
After only 20 minutes, helpful E. coli populations that live in animal guts produce proteins that can curb how hungry its animal partner is, researchers show November 24 in Cell Metabolism. In rodents, the proteins stimulated brain-body responses that led the animals to eat less. The new findings indicate that gut microbes could be more involved with regulating food intake in animals, including humans, than previously thought.