Gut bugs which play a vital role in the biology of human beings and animals could also be driving appetite say researchers in France. ‘The gut microbiota (bugs) respond both to nutrients consumed by their hosts and to the state of their hosts as signalled by various hormones’ write Vic Norris and colleagues from the University of Rouen France. Gut microbes are thought to comprise a community that interacts with the mammalian nervous system also called the enteric nervous system to stimulate the gastrointestinal tract says Norris the Journal of Bacteriology reports. This enteric system contains half a billion neurons
