It seems to be true — it’s the smallest things that could help you obtain your weight loss goals. In this case, it could be those tiny microbes living in your gut.
In 2005, Missouri researchers discovered that mice kept bacteria-free could eat 29% more food than normal mice could without packing on the pounds. This amazing result seemed to be due to the absence of microbes from the digestive tract, as these play an important role in the breakdown of food and the body’s absorption of nutrients (and, ultimately, fat storage).
It was an extremely interesting study, but it’s practically impossible for a person to live a sterile, germ-free existence, so the findings didn’t seem to have much import for our everyday lives.
Now, a new study has expanded on that finding, bringing us closer to a potential solution to the obesity epidemic plaguing North Americans. The same researchers have discovered that the type of bacteria you have in your stomach could influence whether or not you gain weight.
We all have bacteria in our guts, accumulated after we’re born, which help the body digest food for energy. The researchers from the University of Washington, Missouri, wanted to take their 2005 study on mice further to find out if the specific type of microbes in an individual’s stomach could help them stay slimmer.
In this study, they used the bacteria-free mice from their previous research. The researchers then injected the special rodents with either bacterium from normal mice or from mice with a mutation in the “obese gene.” In a normal mouse, this gene is responsible for the hormone that controls appetite; in a mouse with a mutated gene, the appetite is not properly regulated, leading to overeating and the resulting obesity.
The subject mice injected with the normal bacteria had a 25% increase in body fat; whereas the ones injected with the bacteria from the overweight mice had a total body fat gain of 45% — that’s a significant difference of 20%!
Why did this difference in weight gain occur? The research team examined the differences between the digestive tract microbes of the normal rodents and the obese rodents and found a fundamental distinction. The mice with the obesity problem had more “Firmicutes” bacteria, and less “Bacteroidetes” bacteria. So you’re probably asking yourself, “A bacterium is a bacterium, right?”
Wrong. This research suggests that the Firmicutes bacteria are better at helping the body digest complex carbohydrates. That might sound like a good thing, but it actually means that more food is getting turned into fat deposits. This was probably an advantage in the days when food was scarce, but not so much in our modern society, where food is plentiful.
So, it seems that these little overachieving bacteria are making some people more prone to the problem of obesity. This is backed up by another study by the same research team — this time on humans. Basically, the researchers have found that obese people have more Firmicutes than Bacteroidetes bacteria in their digestive tracts, and vice versa, like the mice. Moreover, when put on a diet limiting carbohydrates or fat, the balance of these two types of bacteria shifted in the obese subjects, further proving the connection.
Perhaps these study results point to a new target when it comes to weight loss — the tiny bacteria that live in your gut. This great finding could perhaps lead to some form of testing that could identify people prone to obesity or maybe even some form of therapy that could manipulate the type of bacteria living in your body.
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Tags: obesity, quick weight loss
