--- title: Gut Bacteria May Influence Eating Habits, Study Finds description: “Bacteria within the gut are manipulative,” researchers say canonical: https://time.com/3131789/gut-bacteria-eating-habits-mind-control/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-17T20:24:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:53.153Z article:section: Health og:title: Gut bacteria may influence eating habits og:description: They're "manipulative," researchers say og:url: https://time.com/3131789/gut-bacteria-eating-habits-mind-control/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Gut bacteria may influence eating habits twitter:description: They're "manipulative," researchers say twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Can't Stick to That Diet? Blame Your Gut Bacteria > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: The Truth About Fat [Watch (HLS stream): The Truth About Fat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uYGhfNfS.m3u8) (5:15)  _Published 2014-06-12. When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you're not alone_  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Aug 17, 2014 8:24 PM UTC  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Aug 17, 2014 8:24 PM UTC Your willpower may not be entirely to blame for your eating habits — [your gut bacteria may be responsible](http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-rule-our-minds), too. The gut microbiome, the collection of all the microbes in our digestive tracts, may influence our food choices and behavior, suggests a new study that recently appeared in the journal _BioEssays_. Different bacteria have different nutritional needs based on the niches they’ve come to occupy in our guts, say researchers from University of California San Francisco, Arizona State University and the University of New Mexico. Sometimes the needs of those bacteria are “aligned with our own dietary goals, and others not,” says corresponding author Carlos Maley, the director of the UCSF Center for Evolution and Cancer. These different microbes may be able to manipulate our dietary desires by releasing molecules that affect certain organ systems or influence our brain through the vagus nerve, says the study, which connects the brain to the stomach. (Yes, what happens in vagus doesn’t stay in vagus.) “Microbes have the capacity to manipulate behavior and mood through altering the neural signals in the vagus nerve, changing taste receptors, producing toxins to make us feel bad, and releasing chemical rewards to make us feel good,” says senior author Athena Aktipis of the Arizona State University Department of Psychology. It works both ways, however — what humans eat may also affect what food gut bacteria need. Bacteria specializing in digesting seaweed have been found in people in Japan, where seaweed is often a part of diets. And in one trial, humans who took a probiotic containing _Lactobacillus casei_ saw their mood improve. Understanding how microbes influence human behavior and vice versa may eventually help researchers learn how to curb unhealthy habits. “Because microbiota are easily manipulatable by prebiotics, probiotics, antibiotics, fecal transplants, and dietary changes, altering our microbiota offers a tractable approach to otherwise intractable problems of obesity and unhealthy eating,” the authors say in the study. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3131789/gut-bacteria-eating-habits-mind-control/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3131789/gut-bacteria-eating-habits-mind-control/"},"headline":"Can't Stick to That Diet? 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