Dr. Diego Bohórquez

Like we're not necessarily aware of it.

Although I've read that there are some instances in which people become more aware of it, either in a typical fashion or with meditation and other things that people can become aware.

Wild, right?

So here comes the key experiment.

And this was building, obviously, on the work of other scientists that had already described that the gut had some receptors for sugars, specifically for glucose, for other nutrients.

Around this area in the early 2000s, when we were starting to be able to identify some of these cells, then it quickly became obvious that these cells

these enteroendocrine cells throughout the lining of the stomach, intestine, colon, they had multiple receptors for multiple nutrients.

You know, like we have the macronutrients, for instance, sugars, fats, proteins.

But within them, we have...

you know, a repertoire of molecules, you know, multiple lipids, multiple types of sugars and so on and so forth.

And these cells, depending on their location, they will express a different type of receptors or a combination of those receptors.

And I said that depending on the location, because when we're eating, let's say an apple, you know, the apple is gonna be partially undigested by the time that it enters the intestine.

But by the time that it gets to the colon, most of those nutrients have been absorbed and perhaps only fibers are surviving to feed off most of the microbes that live in the colon, right?

So the gut has evolved to mirror and to become a Velcro

to the molecules that will be in that specific space, so it will detect.

So it will detect sugars more in the proximal intestine, but fibers or fermented byproducts more in the distal intestine or in the colon, like short chain fatty acids, butyrate, propionate.

and so on and so forth.

Yes, the short answer is that...

I think that in due time, we are going to realize that they detect just about every single thing that we put on our mouths every day.

That they have either a specific receptor that is dedicated to it or a combination of receptors to be able to detect some of these compounds.