Gut Bacteria In Slim People Extract More Nutrients

Beeftopia writes "Researchers discovered that inserting gut bacteria from obese people into mice without gut bacteria led to the mice becoming obese. Gut bacteria from slim people inserted into the same mice did not lead to mouse obesity. The researchers concluded (abstract) that gut bacteria from the slim people were more efficient at extracting nutrients from food than those of the obese."

Comments

Oh look the d word

[trdtaylor]

"However, the diet was also important for creating the right conditions for the lean twin's bacteria to flourish. A bacterial obesity therapy seems unlikely to work alongside a a diet of greasy burgers."

Guess what, proper diet still required. /surprise.

Re:Oh look the d word

[jamesh]

PH of a very acidic soda = 2.522, PH of stomach acid = 1.35

Don't blame the soda for having an acidic stomach.

If you drink something acidic, the total acidity level of your stomach will be more than if you drink water.

That last statement is correct, but your stomach will still be less acidic than if you drank nothing, so it doesn't support the original statement that drinking soda makes your stomach more acidic as drinking anything less acidic than stomach acid will always make your stomach less acidic. There are a bunch of reasons why drinking lots of soda isn't a good idea, but acidifying your stomach isn't one of them.

Re:I hit 190 and stay there

[ackthpt]

even with 200+ miles on a bike a week I won't go below that.

Math doesn't argue, you're taking in what you burn in Calories. You are not keeping that weight on by inhaling too much air.

When I rode a road bike I was always around 165. Now I'm about 190, but don't get that level of aerobic workout anymore. But I remember well how much I ate and how I went to bed hungry so I wouldn't be towing a 5 extra pounds of lard up some of the California hills.

Re:FIAF.

[hamburger lady]

yeah, i doubt the authors of the Science study above read any relevant literature at all.

Read the paper, it's not just correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

By careful work with mice, their experiment does indeed demonstrate causation. It was a very clever series of experiments, which is probably why it was accepted into the journal Science. Step back a bit and think: how likely is it that reviewers for Science--probably some of the world's top scientists--missed something as basic and as obvious as correlation != causation?

By the way, this subject seems to generate an angry, viceral reaction for you. Why is that? Does your self-worth revolve around feeling superior to fat people?

Re:FIAF.

[smaddox]

You'd be surprised what kind of crap gets published in Science and Nature - and any other peer reviewed journal, for that matter. My favorite is lasers that don't actually lase. We see those all the time.

Re:FIAF.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be surprised what kind of crap gets published in Science and Nature - and any other peer reviewed journal, for that matter. My favorite is lasers that don't actually lase. We see those all the time.

No, I wouldn't be surprised, I've seen it and lived it (including the non-lasing lasers you speak of!). Sad thing is that I'm about to reject a paper I'm currently reviewing not because of the science (which is sound) but because it's so poorly written as to be almost unreadable. The problem is that there are people who learn how to wave their hands really well and make lots of friends who help pass this tripe through the peer review process, and many decent scientists who don't write "too good."

[sigh]

Re:FIAF.

[hamburger lady]

You'd be surprised what kind of crap gets published in Science and Nature

certainly it's garbage compared to a blog post by a veterinarian.