[HN Gopher] Got food cravings? What's living in your gut may be ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Got food cravings? What's living in your gut may be responsible
        
       Author : gmays
       Score  : 141 points
       Date   : 2022-04-22 16:02 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.pitt.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.pitt.edu)
        
       | smallerfish wrote:
       | Does anybody know of good research which shows how long it takes
       | the microbiome to adjust if you significantly change diet? New
       | diets can be hard to stick with initially, and it seems like the
       | gut's "needs" may be a real cause of this.
        
         | hirundo wrote:
         | I'm a long-time serial dieter who has radically changed my diet
         | on several occasions now, from SAD to vegitarian to SAD to
         | vegan to SAD to raw vegan to SAD to FODMAP to SAD to McDougall
         | high carb to paleo low carb to meat-centered to (currently)
         | carnivore. (Among others.)
         | 
         | Each time (moving to non-SAD) it takes around six months before
         | I stop naturally losing weight and either stabilize (on
         | carnivore) or start heading back up (on everything else). I
         | attribute this mostly to the microbiome, so by my own N=1
         | experiments, I'd say about six months.
        
           | kshacker wrote:
           | As a fellow failed dieter, just trying to find something that
           | will work for me ...
           | 
           | So you switch diets because you stabilize and want more
           | weight loss, OR because they stop working? Curious to hear
           | about the switch.
           | 
           | My personal preference is sugar-free. Successful for 2 years
           | from 2016-2018, and now trying low-sugar (not no sugar) since
           | January 2022, and reasonably successful although not much
           | (just 6 lbs about 3%) to show for it.
        
             | hirundo wrote:
             | I was a failed dieter from age 7 to 57. It took me that
             | long to figure out that this body works best on animal
             | products. I was never a particular meat eater and had to be
             | forced to try it by an inability to move my bowels on
             | anything else. But it has reduced and stabilized my weight
             | like nothing else has, while all but eliminating my
             | cravings for SAD food. I really like eating this way now,
             | and get as much or more pleasure from food than ever.
             | 
             | When I switched it was in despair over failure. They all
             | (but the last) stopped working, though I continued to
             | follow them religiously. For years I was an obsessive food
             | diarist, and have books full of logs on what I ate, with
             | charts showing how my weight gradually stabilized well
             | before goal, and started going up again. This followed the
             | trend of my appetite. When I switch diets my appetite goes
             | down, and it recovers gradually over that half-year.
             | 
             | I think going sugar-free is a great move, but from sources
             | like https://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/ have come to
             | think that avoiding seed-oils is even more important, over
             | a span of decades.
        
           | mirceal wrote:
           | imagine all the microbiome meetings and all the unhappy
           | little fellas having to go through a reorg every 6 months. :)
        
             | mech422 wrote:
             | LOL - I snorted ...
             | 
             | Maybe they can 'pivot' in a new direction :-)
        
               | mirceal wrote:
               | need to receive a VC cash infusion immediately to prevent
               | hitting the end of their cash runway!
        
         | octokatt wrote:
         | This was a good enough question I started researching. TL;DR:
         | Your microbiome adapts quickly, but you don't get to see the
         | full effects for weeks to months.
         | 
         | Turns out, your microbiome will shift significantly within a
         | few days of changing your diet [0]. A more recent study showed
         | that increasing raw vegetables in your diet significantly
         | changed microbiome at about the same speed [1].
         | 
         | However, because the _effects_ of a healthy microbiome are
         | things like better vitamin reception and disease prevention [2]
         | [3], it can take months to see the effects of something like
         | better B12 can take weeks to see [4]. Disease prevention of
         | metabolic diseases takes years to see fully.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-guts-
         | microbio... [1]
         | https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/10/study-finds-g...
         | [2]
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microbiome#Disease_and_d...
         | [3]
         | https://depts.washington.edu/ceeh/downloads/FF_Microbiome.pd...
         | [4] https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/cyanocobalamin/
        
         | virtuallynathan wrote:
         | It's very quick:
         | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3957428/
        
       | narrator wrote:
       | I'm on day 10 of a 14 day water fast. The hunger was very bad for
       | about the first 7 days and now its been nothing. The idea of
       | eating is interesting to me, but the visceral hunger constantly
       | reminding me to eat isn't there anymore. Long term fasting is
       | great like that.
        
         | herpderperator wrote:
         | Are you really not eating for 2 weeks?
        
           | narrator wrote:
           | Yes, really. Some people do it for 30 days or more if they
           | have a very large amount of weight to lose. You have to take
           | electrolytes (potassium, sodium, magnesium), and it should
           | never be done if underweight. I started getting seriously
           | into fasting when I asked all the people I met at longevity
           | conferences who looked extremely good for their age what
           | practices they used. The ones who looked the best for their
           | age were longer-term fasters.
           | 
           | Fun fact, the longest fast was 382 days[1]. The guy started
           | at 456 lbs and ended up at 180 lbs.
           | 
           | [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast
        
             | lukewrites wrote:
             | I'd love to learn more about the longevity conferences
             | you've attended, if you don't mind.
        
             | filoleg wrote:
             | I am very curious about a couple of things regarding that
             | experience, so I hope you dont mind if I ask a question. I
             | want to preface it by saying that I am not trying to
             | dismiss this pracice as inherently dangerous or bad
             | (because I frankly have no idea).
             | 
             | While with 14 days of it probably not being a concern in
             | that aspect, but do people who do it for much longer
             | periods (100+ days, or maybe even less would qualify) not
             | have any atrophy-related issues in relevant systems?
             | Anything related to their intestines and all the way to the
             | exit, wouldn't they lose a significant amount of their
             | ability to do their jobs properly? I am not saying they
             | should be able to start processing 5000kcal of carb heavy
             | food immediately in a single meal after the fasting stops
             | with no issues (as that 5000kcal meal can would give quite
             | a lot of healthy people who dont fast issues as well), but
             | would their intestines actually be able to function fine
             | again? I mean, for something even as banal as sphincter
             | muscles, I am simply lost. Is human body actually that
             | adaptable to handle it like a no big deal?
        
               | narrator wrote:
               | In long-term fast of more than a week there's the
               | possibility of refeeding syndrome. If the person fasting
               | hasn't kept up with their electrolytes, they can have
               | possibly fatal issues if they absolutely gorge themselves
               | when stopping the fast. When I end the fast, I am going
               | to proceed gently for the first couple of days before
               | resuming a normal diet even though I have used an
               | electrolyte formulation to keep my electrolyte levels at
               | an optimal level.
        
               | julianeon wrote:
               | You could always do the "lite" version like me.
               | 
               | I eat one day and fast the next. I rode this very simple
               | procedure to melt away 40 lbs (was easy). I have been
               | doing this for about 3 months, lately my weights been
               | stable as I've skipped fast days.
               | 
               | I also only eat for about one hour on days when I do eat;
               | normally it seems like the sugar rush becomes noticeable
               | at the one hour mark, so even if you eat for the whole
               | hour, that will pause you.
               | 
               | My experience:
               | 
               | 1st day of fasting is the hardest. But if you are fasting
               | every other day obviously you'll get used to it.
               | 
               | You become aware that your imagination (imagining
               | savoring the food etc.) was a big part of your eating.
               | Knowing that it's easier to not eat.
               | 
               | I don't know what it's like to skip food for multiple
               | days (well, more than 2), but for 48 hours between meals,
               | it's very doable, and stops feeling "heroic" (or needing
               | massive willpower) pretty quickly. It just feels like
               | your stomachs vacation day - which feels good.
        
       | obblekk wrote:
       | 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).
       | 
       | 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.
       | 
       | 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.
       | 
       | 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.
        
         | tamaharbor wrote:
         | Why is it scientists would have us believe that they know
         | everything definitively regarding covid, covid vaccines,
         | climate change, etc?
        
           | pc86 wrote:
           | Literally no scientist has ever said that they know
           | everything definitively about any topic, let alone those.
        
             | coding123 wrote:
             | But we ascribe policy as if they do know 100%.
        
               | Spivak wrote:
               | I think there's a difference between "we make and adjust
               | policy based on the strongest theory we have with an
               | extra dose of caution" and "we think science is
               | infallible."
        
               | pc86 wrote:
               | The fact that politicians are idiots, in addition to
               | surprising approximately zero people, shouldn't be used
               | to impugn science.
        
           | darkteflon wrote:
           | Mate, go over to the Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com)
           | and read through their coronavirus coverage starting all the
           | way back at the beginning of 2020. You have been sold a lie
           | in your little TikTok bubble.
        
         | adamrezich wrote:
         | there is this sort of modern attitude toward science that
         | tacitly assumes that we understand some sufficient majority of
         | the nature of reality, when in fact reality is apparently
         | infinitely fractal.
        
           | throwaway4aday wrote:
           | I think most of the gaps in our understanding of biology stem
           | from the scale at which we exist. Most biology takes place at
           | the cellular or even the molecular level, we only see the
           | very far removed macro-scale effects of a myriad of
           | intertwined processes.
        
           | mirceal wrote:
           | hah. not even close. we had moderate success in understanding
           | and modeling some phenomena, but in the grand scheme of
           | things we don't know much. which is both scary and great if
           | you have a curios mind
        
         | r3trohack3r wrote:
         | Have you come across the environmental theory of obesity?
         | 
         | https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/11/23/a-chemical-hunger-p...
        
         | netizen-936824 wrote:
         | The complexity of life is nuts. Once you start learning about
         | how things work, you can see that we only know a tiny fraction
         | of what's going on
        
           | eastbound wrote:
           | Organic growth is like "Throw bits into the computer and see
           | whether they make NPM."
           | 
           | ...And the complexity of an NPM project is nuts, actually.
        
           | zionic wrote:
           | I mean sure, I'd love a scalpel but right now we don't even
           | have a hammer.
           | 
           | It would be fantastic to do something even as simple as shut
           | off the hunger signal for set intervals.
           | 
           | Imagine if you literally couldn't feel hunger from say...
           | 10am to 6pm. There's all sorts of cool hacks we do to improve
           | humanity if we could get a grip on cravings.
        
         | mirceal wrote:
         | not only that, but our gut is literally the 2nd brain of our
         | bodies. Read somewhere that there are more than 200 million in
         | our gut. To put it in perspective, that's more neurons that all
         | the neurons in a dog's brain.
        
         | throwaway1777 wrote:
         | Highly doubt there is a silver bullet. There are likely a
         | myriad of reasons because diets and genetics are so diverse.
         | Sugar is the obvious villain though.
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | > a study that takes 1 liter of blood and just documents every
         | chemical structure found (at any concentration)
         | 
         | That's because we don't actually have the technology to do
         | that. You can test for specific compounds that you know how to
         | test for, and if their concentration is high enough. But
         | there's currently no way to e.g. go through a given sample
         | molecule by molecule.
        
           | DantesKite wrote:
           | Both these comments are a great way of putting it. I never
           | thought about this before. Very interesting.
        
           | daanlo wrote:
           | I thought you would be able to do this with a mass
           | spectrometer. Although you would probably need a lot of blood
           | :)
        
             | gxt wrote:
             | Exactly, IBM can make movies using individual atoms, surely
             | we aren't too far from being able to look at molecular
             | structures and deduce what compounds are in a sample of
             | blood.
        
             | heavyset_go wrote:
             | You'd typically need reference samples if you're trying to
             | get a typical lab to analyze compounds via mass
             | spectrometry, which would make identification of unknown
             | substances in blood hard for non-researchers.
        
             | montecarl wrote:
             | A mass spectrometer by itself, will tell you the mass to
             | charge ratio of ions in a sample. In most samples the
             | molecules themselves are not ions naturally and need to be
             | ionized. This can be done using a number of techniques, but
             | a common one is electron impact ionization, where electrons
             | are slammed into molecules causing them to fragment into
             | charged ions. This smashes the molecules up into small
             | charged chunks which can then be analyzed by the mass spec.
             | These mass spectra are good fingerprints for the original
             | molecule and can be mapped back to what molecule must have
             | been smashed to produced them. However, if you try to
             | analyze the mass spectrum of a mixture of molecules that
             | are similar you will not be able to deconvolute the result
             | into any unique answer, i.e. there will be many possible
             | mixtures of molecules that could have resulted in the mass
             | spectrum.
             | 
             | This limitation of mass spectrometry can be overcome by
             | first separating out the mixture of molecules you want to
             | analyze into different fractions before they are ionized
             | and enter the mass spectrometer. One common way to do this
             | is to use a gas chromatography column. This works by first
             | heating the sample so that it turns into a gas, and then
             | passing it through a long column that is packed with a
             | material that will interact with the gas and slow some
             | molecules more than others. Often it is packed with silica.
             | In this way you get the technique called GC-MS (gas
             | chromatography/mass spectrometry).
             | 
             | GC-MS is a fantastic technique for analyzing complex
             | mixtures but it will have its limits if there are too many
             | different types of molecules in the mixture. In blood there
             | will be tiny molecules like O2 and CO2 and giant macro-
             | molecules like DNA. There is no technique I know of that
             | can analyze such a wide range of molecular masses in one
             | go. Plus mass spectrometry doesn't directly give you the
             | structure just the masses of the fragments after you blow
             | up the molecules (or the total mass if a more gentle
             | ionization technique is used as is sometimes done for
             | macromolecules).
             | 
             | I write all this just to explain how there aren't any
             | analytical instruments that you just inject a sample into
             | and out pops all the chemicals and their concentrations.
             | Blood is a amazing soup of different elements and molecules
             | and a full analysis requires a large number of steps and
             | different analytical techniques to get even close to fully
             | characterizing.
        
               | carlmr wrote:
               | Thank you, I've always wondered about these but was too
               | lazy to check.
        
               | Etheryte wrote:
               | What a gloriously through yet understandable explanation
               | of the problem and its context, thank you.
        
             | raylad wrote:
             | Mass spec (at least as of a few years ago) require
             | reference spectra to identify compounds. Without them, you
             | can guess at structure but it's not accurate.
        
       | RugnirViking wrote:
       | Something that's always confused me is how I get powerful
       | cravings for sugar, but am relatively untempted by salty foods or
       | carbohydrates, wheras my sister(very close in age to myself)
       | isn't tempted at all by sugar but is a sucker for salty foods. We
       | grew up in a presumably quite similar culinary environment. I've
       | often wondered If the differences can be explained by gut
       | bacteria.
       | 
       | Also, surely the claim that this is the first study to show a
       | link between gut bacteria and food choice is wrong? I'm pretty
       | I've known about the link for years?
        
       | matthewdgreen wrote:
       | There's a ton of very new research on this. The big exciting
       | candidate right now is Akkermansia muciniphila, which seems to
       | emit a glucagon-like peptide that moderates appetite [1] (similar
       | to drugs like Wegovy, only maybe without the side effects.) The
       | western high-fat/carb diet also seems to cause Akkermansia
       | populations to drop precipitously, which may be either cause or a
       | separate side-effect of the obesity epidemic.
       | 
       | Apparently supplementing Akkermansia in obese mice has extremely
       | beneficial effects on weight and all sorts of health measures. I
       | tried some from the only supplier in the US and (unfortunately)
       | noticed absolutely no difference, N=1. Still, I am eagerly
       | awaiting the day when someone conclusively nails the obesity
       | epidemic down to something as simple as gut dysbiosis.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-021-00880-5
        
         | alimov wrote:
         | Grain Brain is an interesting read that covers in a pop-sci way
         | some of the various research being done.
        
         | DoreenMichele wrote:
         | _Still, I am eagerly awaiting the day when someone conclusively
         | nails the obesity epidemic down to something as simple as gut
         | dysbiosis._
         | 
         | That's unlikely to happen. Nutritional content of produce has
         | gone down, people eat fewer home-cooked meals and we drive more
         | and walk less, among other things. So it's not likely to boil
         | down to "This one simple trick!" that can be solved with a
         | simple product one can buy for cheap.
        
           | matthewdgreen wrote:
           | If you look at the timing of the obesity epidemic you notice
           | that it has a very sharp "knee" in the US around the 1970s.
           | It does not coincide with the introduction of fast food or
           | the automobile or sedentary living, and contemporary people
           | exercise _more_ in many cases than they did in the 60s and
           | 70s, with vastly higher BMI as a result. The same pattern
           | occurs in other countries just at later times. And the effect
           | size is _huge_. Much larger than anything we can achieve with
           | diet and exercise (durably) or even the best weight loss
           | drugs. I don't know what's causing it, but "gosh people eat
           | poorly" doesn't seem like a good explanation. I thought this
           | was a good (amateur, but accessible) summary of some of the
           | stats: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-
           | hunger-p...
        
             | DoreenMichele wrote:
             | _I don't know what's causing it, but "gosh people eat
             | poorly" doesn't seem like a good explanation._
             | 
             | I'm not sure what your point is because what I said boils
             | down to "There seem to be multiple factors, not any one
             | thing."
             | 
             | I've lost multiple dress sizes by improving my health when
             | losing weight wasn't a goal at all. Among other things,
             | that experience informs my views and I don't really know
             | how to engage whatever point you are trying to make that
             | seems to not really engage with anything I actually said.
             | 
             | But thank you for the link. It's got a take I hadn't
             | previously seen.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | While I'm fairly convinced that a lot of dysfunction gets a
         | helping hand from microbiota imbalance, including such faraway
         | targets as pulmonary, cardiac, and even neurodegenerative
         | disorders [1], I think there's a simpler culprit: sugar.
         | Metabolism of simple sugars changes biochemical gears, and we
         | as a culture and society are heavy on its use.
         | 
         | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29882347
        
           | matthewdgreen wrote:
           | Sugar definitely seems bad, but doesn't explain why simple
           | fecal transplants are able to replicate many of the health
           | effects of a low-carb diet without the actual diet, at least
           | in some obese mice [1]. (PS I am definitely not an expert in
           | this area, just someone who is tired of eating low-carb to
           | maintain weight, and wondering why other people can just eat
           | normal food.)
           | 
           | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6199268/
        
         | bbarnett wrote:
         | _The western high-fat /carb diet also seems to cause
         | Akkermansia populations to drop_
         | 
         | The West, typically, eats a tiny, tiny fraction of the fat it
         | used to. And also far less animal fat.
         | 
         | Do you know what went in soups, stews? Bones, with fat, for
         | flavour, and energy, and nutrition.
         | 
         | What were pies made of? Pies, made to allow older apples and
         | such, to be used past their best date?
         | 
         | Loads of animal fat in the crust.
         | 
         | And, especially in Canada, our pork is now leaner than beef was
         | 50 years ago! And our beef is silly lean.
         | 
         | We eat far, far less fat than our ancestors, who would never
         | throw away such valuable, nutritious calories.
         | 
         | If the simple metric is, why were we thin before, and
         | overweight now? And if the answer is "our diet changed", then
         | this logic means we should all be eating about 10x the calories
         | we currently do, in animal fat, and tapering off the rest.
         | 
         | What if all those craving are just simply "the body needs more
         | nutritious fat". Just like our ancestors ate.
         | 
         | What if we crave salty snacks, coated in vegetable oil (potato
         | chips), because our body desperately wants salty fat?
         | 
         | Being overweight is far, far more unhealthy than eating more
         | animal fat daily.
         | 
         | What if the cost of low fat diets, is an irresistable urge
         | which causes weight gain?
         | 
         | If so, low fat diets are, therefore, very unhealthy... because
         | being overweight is far worse.
        
           | hombre_fatal wrote:
           | I'd focus on getting fruit, vegetables, legumes, fiber, and
           | everything that comes with it back into the western diet
           | before I'd look at animal fat as the silver bullet we're
           | missing.
           | 
           | Too few animal products doesn't seem like the thing the SAD
           | is missing, either.
        
             | oblak wrote:
             | Indeed. All this talk about a proper diet without ever
             | mentioning anything but animal flesh and fat.
             | 
             | Can't be the excess food intake. Like too much sweets and
             | meat. No. Fat people are not eating enough fat. It's so
             | simple.
        
               | wincy wrote:
               | I mean I lost 80 pounds literally eating cheap hot dogs
               | and kimchi for 6 months. It might be that simple.
        
               | ajsnigrutin wrote:
               | That's almost zero carbs (if we're talking about
               | "sausage" hodogs, and not "sausage-in-bread-bun"
               | hotdogs)... fat makes you feel full faster and longer,
               | and kimchi add vitamins and almost zero calories, so no
               | wonder you're losing weight :)
               | 
               | Replace those with potato chips and chocolate, and you'll
               | be fat very soon :)
        
               | matthewdgreen wrote:
               | I think the upshot of much of this research is that sugar
               | and fat aren't directly the issue. That gut bacteria
               | actually have a much bigger impact on both energy
               | expenditure and appetite than we thought. Insofar as diet
               | has a major effect on obesity (in the epidemic sense
               | we're seeing in the US) it might be due to diet having a
               | harmful effect on gut bacteria. Or it might not. It's an
               | intriguing hypothesis, and it's disappointing to see it
               | devolving into an argument about "not eating too many
               | sweets."
        
       | nvusuvu wrote:
       | I eliminated food cravings in perhaps an unorthodox method. It
       | wasn't my intention, but I am better off for it I believe. I
       | started with a 72 hour fast (water only). After that, I had a
       | bite of a steamed carrot and the experience immediately after
       | tasting the carrot was the biggest natural high of my life. It
       | was like my brain dumped every pleasure producing chemical into
       | my bloodstream. I started to focus on healthy veggies and
       | fish/chicken with small servings of nuts and avocados. I lost 20
       | pounds (so far) and don't craze processed sugars like I have in
       | the past. When you stop eating a lot of sugar, the gut biome
       | bacteria chlamydia starves I think, and you are much healthy for
       | it.
        
         | Tade0 wrote:
         | I had a similar experience when we introduced our child to
         | solids - we all ate the same meal so obviously added sugar and
         | salt were out of the question.
         | 
         | Within two weeks I started experiencing flavours that I
         | previously had no idea were there - especially rice has a
         | different taste initially than after it's chewed.
         | 
         | I used to eat those instant ramen noodles every other day. Now
         | I can't stand the salt content.
        
           | nvusuvu wrote:
           | I was telling people that the carrot tasted like candy to me
           | and they looked at me like I had lost my mind.
        
           | lostcolony wrote:
           | Dunno if you care or not since they're still not healthy
           | (just starch basically, but, instant ramen without the
           | 'flavor' packet has all sorts of great ways of preparing it.
           | Budget Bytes has some excellent suggestions -
           | https://www.budgetbytes.com/?s=ramen
        
           | QuercusMax wrote:
           | Starches like rice will taste different if you allow saliva
           | to work on them - your saliva contains enzymes which break
           | down starches into sugars. This is commonly demonstrated in
           | middle school science classes by having kids chew a saltine
           | cracker, and taste how it starts out bland and ends up
           | tasting sweet as you hold it in your mouth.
        
         | globular-toast wrote:
         | Actually _anjoying_ food is, somewhat paradoxically, a great
         | way to control weight.
         | 
         | Watch fat people eat. It's like they are trying to maximise
         | calorie intake. Food is shovelled in. Bites are taken before
         | the previous one is even swallowed. They don't really enjoy the
         | taste of the food, they just want the feeling of hunger to go
         | away as quickly as possible.
         | 
         | Watch how French people eat. It's not about survival, it's
         | about enjoyment. Each bite is savoured. Time is taken to
         | appreciate the food. It's one of the most important times of
         | the day.
         | 
         | French people eat like they're making love. Fat people eat like
         | they're jacking off to porn to deal with the daily urges.
        
           | darkteflon wrote:
           | Needs citation.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | Eliminating sugars or salt will make you realize just how
         | overly sweet and salty most food that isn't prepared at home
         | is.
        
           | wincy wrote:
           | It's wild to me how heavy cream tastes sweet after you
           | acclimate to a low sugar diet. It has something like 1g of
           | sugar for every 12g of fat (if I remember from the label)
        
         | wincy wrote:
         | I think I did this too, but in reverse! Unfortunately I
         | couldn't get to the store fast enough after my 72 hour fast,
         | and my stomach hurt so bad that I ended up eating a Chalupa.
         | Then I gained 60 pounds. Oops.
        
         | standardUser wrote:
         | Similarly, I have found that every time I severely limit carbs
         | for a solid 3-4 days my appetite flatlines instead of rapidly
         | rising and falling throughout the day. And everything starts to
         | taste better. And I have way less gas.
        
         | colechristensen wrote:
         | > the gut biome bacteria chlamydia starves I think, and you are
         | much healthy for it.
         | 
         | I believe you are thinking of candida which is a kind of yeast
         | which is fungi not bacteria.
        
           | vmception wrote:
           | fungi are smarter and more meticulous than bacteria, so I'm
           | willing to believe they could dictate our preferences
        
           | nvusuvu wrote:
           | Yes, you are right. candida. Thanks for the correction.
        
           | mark_l_watson wrote:
           | I think that you are correct. I have been on Dr. Fuhrman's
           | Eat to Live diet a few times: start by eating no processed
           | food and drastically reduce sugar intake unless it is berries
           | or a little fruit. After about a week, the level of candida
           | in your system is reduced to levels closer to what humans had
           | > 50 years ago. At this point, all sorts of food cravings
           | (especially deserts) go away, and homemade meals from natural
           | ingredients taste very good. The first time I went on this
           | diet, I felt 10 or 15 years younger with lots of energy.
        
             | nvusuvu wrote:
             | This has been my experience. I have lots more energy and
             | zero cravings and hungry pains are truly a thing of the
             | past.
        
       | The_rationalist wrote:
        
       | armchairhacker wrote:
       | This 100% lines up with my experience, every time I've changed my
       | diet I started to prefer the foods I was eating. Instead of
       | palate fatigue, eating something a lot causes me to crave it
       | more.
       | 
       | I used to eat a diet of mostly frozen foods. Then I made an
       | effort to eat more vegetables and suddenly started craving
       | vegetables. I use to prefer high-carb low-fat, then I started
       | eating more meat and gradually shifted to preferring low-carb
       | high-fat, except when I took a break and alternated between the
       | two.
        
       | codyb wrote:
       | I've been getting some bad acid reflux lately leading to gnawing
       | in my stomach due to a lifestyle with lots of going out recently
       | as the weather gets better and more events start happening and
       | everyone comes out from covid and the winter. Looking forward to
       | a hopefully relaxing May to take it easy for a bit!
       | 
       | It's amazing how much yogurt helps though. It's very noticeable,
       | and very quick.
        
       | nwe wrote:
       | In case anyone get the idea from reading the article that
       | tryptophan and serotonin are good for you, check out Ray Peat and
       | he has extensive writings on them.
        
         | rednerrus wrote:
         | My observation is that there are two type of brains when it
         | comes to processing serotonin. One type processes it quickly
         | and increased serotonin increases good feelings. The other type
         | processes it very slowly and increased serotonin creates all
         | kinds of problems for this type. This type also tends to
         | struggle with slow processing of catecholamines.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-04-22 23:00 UTC)