(13-10-13) Healthy gut bacteria prevent obesity: Study

by Jonathan Benson, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The key to shedding those excess pounds and achieving that lean
figure you have always dreamed about could be as simple as eating more
bacteria. A new study out of Washington University in St. Louis has found that
maintaining healthy and balanced gut bacteria -- that is, the beneficial
microbes that naturally populate your intestinal tract -- may help prevent
weight gain and actually fight obesity, which now plagues more than one-third
of all Americans.

Dr. Jeffrey Gordon and his colleagues made this important discovery after
observing the effects of intestinal germs implanted into several groups of
pathogen-free mice. WU graduate student Vanessa Ridaura, who worked alongside
Dr. Gordon for the study, took gut bacteria from four pairs of twins, each of
which included both an obese and a lean sibling. One pair of the twins was also
identical, which was meant to rule out any possibility that weight differences
might somehow be inherited.

The team transplanted gut bacteria from these eight individuals into the
intestines of young mice, which were specifically bred to lack their own
natural bacteria, and watched for variations in how these mice developed over
time. In the end, it was noted that the mice who received gut bacteria from the
obese individuals tended to not only gain more weight than the other mice but
also undergo some serious metabolic changes that left them significantly more
unhealthy.

What helped further prove that the bacterial source made all the difference
was the fact that all the mice ate the same amount of food, and yet only those
implanted with the obese bacteria experienced weight gain and health
deterioration. The reason, say experts, is that obese people tend to harbor a
less diverse array of beneficial bacteria in their guts, while leaner people
possess the bacterial variations and balance necessary to maintain a proper and
healthy weight.

Exposing obese individuals to new bacterial compositions could help them slim
down
But the findings do not stop here. After performing this first set of
experiments, the team decided to put mice from both the lean and obese groups
into cages with one another to observe how cross-exposure to different
bacterial profiles might affect the mice's health and weight. For those who are
unaware, mice tend to eat feces, which contain intestinal bugs and other
markers of gut composition.

Not surprisingly, this grouping of the mice and the resultant exposure to
varying bacterial profiles led to a phenomenon called bacterial swapping, in
which bacteria from each of the mice comingled with one another to create new
bacterial profiles. But what came as a surprise was the fact that bacteria from
the lean mice invaded the intestines of the obese mice, triggering positive
changes in both weight and metabolism.

"It was almost as if there were potential job vacancies," explained Dr. Gordon
about the apparently deficient bacterial profiles of the obese mice. At the
same time, the positive changes observed in the obese mice were not reciprocal
in the lean mice, meaning the introduction of bacteria from the obese mice did
not result in any negative changes in the lean mice.

According to Michael Fischbach from the University of California, San
Francisco, who was not involved in the study but spoke to The New York Times
about it, these findings provide "the clearest evidence to date that gut
bacteria can help cause obesity." Adding to this sentiment, Dr. Jeffrey S.
Flier from Harvard Medical School told reporters that the findings, which were
recently published in the journal Science, are "pretty striking."

Sources for this article include:

http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

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In evidenza

"L'informazione presente nel sito serve a migliorare, e non a sostituire, il rapporto medico-paziente."

Per coloro che hanno problemi di salute si consiglia di consultare sempre il proprio medico curante.