Specific Gut Bacteria May Account For Much Obesity

resistant writes "A limited study from China offers the tantalizing possibility that targeting specific gut bacteria in humans could significantly reduce the scope of an epidemic of obesity in Western countries: 'The endotoxin-producing Enterobacter decreased in relative abundance from 35% of the volunteer's gut bacteria to non-detectable, during which time the volunteer lost 51.4kg of 174.8kg initial weight and recovered from hyperglycemia and hypertension after 23 weeks on a diet of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods and prebiotics.' As usual, sensationalist reports have been exaggerating the import of this very early investigation, and one wonders about that 'diet of whole grains.' Still, there could be meat in the idea of addressing pathogenic bacteria for the control of excessive weight gain. After all, it wasn't too long ago that a brave scientist insisted in the face of widespread ridicule that peptic ulcers in humans usually are caused by bacterial infections, not by acidic foods."

Comments

Mass-Media Report

[resistant]

In retrospect, I guess it couldn't hurt to mention at least one mass-media report that doesn't seem too excitable:

Researchers in Shanghai identified a human bacteria linked with obesity, fed it to mice and compared their weight gain with rodents without the bacteria. The latter did not become obese despite being fed a high-fat diet and being prevented from exercising. The Shanghai team fed a morbidly obese man a special diet designed to inhibit the bacterium linked to obesity and found that he lost 29 per cent of his body weight in 23 weeks. The patient was prevented from doing any exercise during the trial. Prof Zhao said such a loss in an obese patient using this diet was unprecedented. The patient also recovered from diabetes, high blood pressure and fatty liver disease.

It will be fascinating to see what happens when other teams try to replicate these results with larger, more statistically significant groups than just one individual. ^^;

Re:Mass-Media Report

[Samantha Wright]

This has actually been studied quite extensively in the last few years, mostly by American researchers. They've been able to show how that mice fed samples of this bacterium will gain weight drastically. Basically, the bacteria process certain sources of food that we're bad at absorbing and make it easier for us to absorb them. It's believed that there's an immunological mutation (which is otherwise all but harmless) that lets them proliferate excessively in humans (defence against flagella, I think), so one can actually say that obesity is genetic, albeit indirectly so.

But that all being said, while careful diet control is certainly effective for mitigating digestion-related problems, this study isn't a cure so much as a band-aid. I'm pretty sure anyone would lose weight and eliminate unwanted intestinal flora under the intake suggested.