Gut Microbes May Help Chew Your Food
A new study, led by Jeff Letourneau, PhD, while in the lab of Lawrence David, PhD, associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology, examined how chewing efficiency and food processing impact the microbiome and fecal particle size in humans.
Previous studies have shown that fecal particle sizes in animals correlates to how they chew. For example, a snake, which eats its prey whole, has large fecal particle sizes, while a mouse that chews small bites out of food has small fecal particle sizes.
This made Letourneau wonder how chewing food might affect fecal particle sizes in humans. “Essentially, what you’re doing to the input relates to the particle size of the output,” Letourneau said. “There’s a lot of evidence to support that, so my question, assuming this would happen in humans, was what’s the effect on the microbiome?”