Study: Gut Microbiome Determines Motivation to Exercise Last week, a study came out showing that the amount of dopamine an animal&#039;s brain releases when they exercise depends on their gut bacteria. Microbiome composition impacted how much the animals would run, both in a forced endurance test and on an exercise wheel in their free time. It looks like a definite cause-and-effect thing: the high-exercising trait could be transferred to other mice by transplanting their gut bacteria. Really wild implications for everything from diet to antibiotics--even cannabis use; it looks like the effect was mediated by the cannabinoid receptor. Wanted to share it here because &quot;mind over matter&quot; is a big thing, but...well, minds are made of matter, and this implies that exercise genuinely is just easier for some people than for others. Some good layman-level coverage of the article is here: <a rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener" href="https://stephenskolnick.substack.com/p/the-spice-melange-exercise-capsaicin" target="_blank">https://stephenskolnick.substack.com/p/the-spice-melange-exercise-capsaicin</a> And the full study is here: <a rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05525-z/" target="_blank">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05525-z/</a> So: thoughts? I&#039;d be curious to hear if anyone here has experiences that align with (or contradict!) this perspective, e.g. if antibiotics killed your 5K time, or hot sauce is your secret to a good workout or something