Usually when you sit for eating, after sometime you start feeling full and you tend to drop your spoon and avoid eating further. Now a team of researchers has found the reason behind this feeling of being full.

The team for their study studied the growth dynamics of E. coli K12, a model organism of commensally strains of gut E. coli bacteria. They noted that the chemical clues hinted that when a specific kind of bacteria in the gut feels that it has had enough nutrients for the time then it tells brain that its host should stop eating.

Researchers said they found that within 20 minutes of eating, E. coli bacteria starts producing a protein which has been found to be associated with appetite suppression response in the brain. E. coli bacteria are found in abundance in the human gut.

As per study researchers the bacteria in the gut may be also responsible for maintaining the amount of nutrients a person takes in a sitting.

Scientists also suspect that signaling brain might be beneficial for the gut bacteria to regulate the food intake. There are also possibilities that the bacteria also signal the release of the post-meal hormones GLP-1 and PYY.

Study lead author SergueiFetissov said, “Our study shows that bacterial proteins from E. coli can be involved in the same molecular pathways that are used by the body to signal satiety, and now we need to know how an altered gut microbiome can affect this physiology”.