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This is a diagram of human-plant-microbe interactions mediated by plant hormones. Credit: Chanclud and Lacombe

A bowl of salad contains more than vitamins and minerals. Plant matter also includes remnants of the hormones plants produce to control how they grow, age, and manage water intake. Recently, scientists have reported that our GI microbes and cells may respond to these hormones and even produce similar molecules of their own “We know that gut microbiota are involved in human diseases, and that microbes can biosynthesize plant hormones that affect humans, so it makes sense to investigate animal-microbe interactions from the perspective of plants,” says Benoît Lacombe of France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

For instance, gut microbes and dietary factors have been ti...