Gut can sense the difference between real sugar and artificial sweetener: Study Latest Videos
News 24
As per findings of the Duke University School of Medicine, one’s intestine’s cells can distinguish between real sugar and artificial sweetener and can communicate this to the brain in milliseconds.
Not long after the sweet taste receptor was identified in the mouths of mice 20 years ago, scientists attempted to knock those taste buds out. But they were surprised to find that mice could still somehow discern and prefer natural sugar to artificial sweetener, even without a sense of taste. The answer to this riddle lied much further down in the digestive tract, at the upper end of the gut just after the stomach, according to Bohorquez.
In a paper which appeared on January 13 in 'Nature Neuroscience', Bohorquez said, "we've identified the cells that make us eat sugar, and they are in the gut." Infusing sugar directly into the lower intestine or colon does not have the same effect. The sensing cells are in the upper reaches of the gut, he said.
Having discovered a gut cell called the neuropod cell, Bohorquez with his research team had been pursuing this cell's critical role as a connection between what's inside the gut and its influence in the brain. The gut, he argued, talks directly to the brain, changing our eating behaviour. And in the long run, these findings may lead to entirely new ways of treating diseases.