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"Thin people have more gut microbes than fat people"
amandaeve
Posts: 723 Member
in Debate Club
"Thin people have more gut microbes than fat people; having hungry microbes may at least partly account for thinness."
Says Bill Bryson in the book "The Body".
What are your thoughts?
Says Bill Bryson in the book "The Body".
What are your thoughts?
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Replies
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He wrote science and non fiction books. It doesn't appear he has a medical degree of any kind, and I can't locate any research studies he's done on the topic. So, honestly I wouldn't accept anything he said as factual.
Unless you can link his research?7 -
gut biome = click bait = sales/trend14
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The book has dozens of pages of citations, but they aren't linked. I'm certain he didn't do research on his own, the book reads like an overview. I thought it would be easier to find someone with knowledge of the claim here than that filter through each of his citations and read the study once I found it (yes, I'm lazy today, which is why I'm reading a book instead of something more ambitious).3
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cmriverside wrote: »gut biome = click bait = sales/trend
Yup.
What we do know is that diet affects gut biome. Generally people who eat more diverse diets with lots of different kinds of plants and fiber have more diverse gut biomes. On average, people who eat lots of fruit and veg and more fiber may be thinner, but not always and it's not like one just happens to have a thin person or fat person gut biome.8 -
The microbiome is a thing and is being researched. For example, there are peer-reviewed articles in print and underway for a number of autoimmune diseases (with human participants, as opposed to mice, monkeys, etc). I'm sure there are other potential health implications under study as well.
The controversy here, for me, is "thin" vs. "fat."
Also, no shade, but I'd rather that adult science communicators have graduated from university.
If you're interested in this topic @amandaeve then there are other people in this genre, with established credentials but who use accessible/lay language. For example, Eric Topol, M.D. was talking about the microbiome (in passing) in "The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care" (2011).
Since then, he has talked about it more often. Coincidentally, I'm rereading this book as of yesterday which is the only reason I can mention the above lol There are so many other reputable speakers on this topic, however, and perhaps some of their names will surface in this thread.8 -
cmriverside wrote: »gut biome = click bait = sales/trend
Yup.
What we do know is that diet affects gut biome. Generally people who eat more diverse diets with lots of different kinds of plants and fiber have more diverse gut biomes. On average, people who eat lots of fruit and veg and more fiber may be thinner, but not always and it's not like one just happens to have a thin person or fat person gut biome.
This is my understanding, too. While there are some indications that a diverse gut microbiome may be a good thing, IMU the science isn't clear about details yet (which bugs are good, and why; which way the correlation arrows point among factors for which broad studies show correlation; which bugs do what, and the related question of which ones, or which mix, would be beneficial vs. neutral vs. harmful; and more).
Personally, I consider it a good bet-hedge to eat plenty of diverse pre-biotic foods (the kind that the microbiome seems to like to munch on, to stay happy) and diverse traditional probiotic foods that humans have consumed for centuries or millennia (raw sauerkraut/kimchi or other fermented pickles; unpasteurized vinegar; miso; yogurt, kefir, and other fermented dairy products; etc.). I don't see how it will harm me, and it might help . . . and happily, those are foods that I find tasty, and they're nutritious. For me, there's no obvious downside.
In Bryson's sentence you quote, the word "may" is really, really important. So is the word "partly". I think he's right.
A diverse gut microbiome "may" also affect mood, cognition, other health conditions, and a litany of other stuff. This will be a fruitful area for research for some time to come, and I'm betting we'll learn some really useful things about human bodies and our symbionts, along the way.
As far as I can see, the only actionable aspect of any of this now is nearly 100% duplicative of things we already know are good for us on the basis of well-understood nutritional recommendations alone.
The only zone for disagreement about that, that I can see, is whether it's worthwhile to take compounded probiotic supplements, i.e., just collections of baby bugs. I don't. Other people do; some find them personally beneficial.5 -
What I've heard over and over from actual PhD researchers about gut microbiomes in listening to them talk on various health and fitness podcasts is that it is pretty hard to make any firm statements on what a microbiome should look like. There's a lot of research filled with correlations of various types and not nearly as much about actual known causatives. Like let's just say a diverse biome is associated with thin people - we also know thin people tend to have better cholesterol profiles, but we don't tend to think "well if I lowered my LDL, I'd finally lose weight!" No, we tend to acknowledge that the things that make one thin, or even being thin tends to lower LDL. It could easily be that people that have diets that lead to a diverse microbiota are eating the kinds of diets that cause thinness and the microbiome is just reflecting that.
And frankly, I'm not sure what a hungry microbe is. I might be a multicellular chauvinists, but I tend to think single celled organisms don't have feelings like hunger - that sensation in humans comes in a feedback loop of having multiple cells working together in central processing center called a brain. Now if, on the other hand, a hungry microbe is one that takes up calories from the host, sure, tapeworms definitely seem to lead to weight loss, not hard to imagine similar but less aggressive bacteria and fungi do similar things by denying a host calories. I'm not sure drinking dirty water is really the solution first world people are looking for to get rid of obesity though.8 -
The whole digestive bacteria issue is too new and controversial for some of the folks at my fitness pal. They won't accept that a fecal transplant from a thin mouse to an obese mouse results in it getting thin.
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
Anyway fecal transplant research for weight loss is advancing glacially slowly, it would not surprise me if 10 years from now it hasn't advanced past tiny human trials.2 -
Or perhaps "they" just don't think findings in mice will translate precisely to results in humans . . . because of the many cases in which they have not done that in the past? And that there might be concerns about safety of fecal transplants for other reasons?The whole digestive bacteria issue is too new and controversial for some of the folks at my fitness pal. They won't accept that a fecal transplant from a thin mouse to an obese mouse results in it getting thin.
Fecal transplants for recurrent C.diff are being done in humans now, somewhat routinely, I believe.However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
Anyway fecal transplant research for weight loss is advancing glacially slowly, it would not surprise me if 10 years from now it hasn't advanced past tiny human trials.
Many people would be better served by eating a healthier diet. Some of the reasons may be related to our microbiota. The effect of eating healthfully is pretty clear, in correlational studies, in very numerous case histories, and more.
There are ways to increase one's microbiotic diversity that humans have practiced for centuries/millennia, too (not necessarily intentionally). Dig in the dirt, don't coat your world with antiseptics, touch other people (well, maybe not in a time of pandemic
), have pets, eat probiotic foods, etc.
Why wait for the transplants, or the proof about microbiotic involvement in thinness or health, when eating healthfully, in appropriate amounts, with reasonable activity levels alongside, works for so many people?
To me, it seems like another example of the hope for an easy solution: Take the pill, or get the fecal transplant, anything but eat veggies and exercise. Call me a cynic; it's fine.15 -
The idea of 'hungry microbes' sounds ridiculous, honestly.
But there's a lot of research out there right now about weight and our gut biome that are pretty interesting. And some of them might end up being pretty significant, even if many are still only suggestive of things that we need to research in the future.
Colonies of Escherichia coli (E.coli) bacteria release certain proteins when they’ve had enough nutrients and these can activate appetite-related neurons to make you feel full. So you're likely to eat less.
https://www.sciencealert.com/your-gut-bacteria-appear-to-be-controlling-your-appetite
Obesity seems to correlate with lower diversity of gut bacteria (not levels, but strains of) - they don't know why.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19043404/
Human twins' gut bacteria - one obese and one not - were injected into mice with no gut bacteria, and the mice would develop weight to match the gut bacteria donor's. Not sure why, but it had an impact.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3829625/
A mouse study found that "the gut microbiota is an important environmental factor that affects energy harvest from the diet and energy storage in the host." Or basically, gut bacteria might alter our fat storage.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15505215/
There's more on studies looking at weight and bacteria that digest more fiber, weight and the ratios between certain bacteria in the gut, all sorts of things.
So while the theory 'The Body' author had seems crap, the concept that our gut biome may have an impact on a lot of how the body works has been gaining traction for a number of years now (the gut is also being looked at for its impact on food allergies and auto-immune diseases, too).
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The whole digestive bacteria issue is too new and controversial for some of the folks at my fitness pal. They won't accept that a fecal transplant from a thin mouse to an obese mouse results in it getting thin.
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
Anyway fecal transplant research for weight loss is advancing glacially slowly, it would not surprise me if 10 years from now it hasn't advanced past tiny human trials.
Do you mean this study that was retracted?
https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/65/5/1447.full
Yeah, how foolish for people not to immediately extend one study in a different class of animals immediately to health for all humans, particularly one that had not been replicated. Well that retracted study was actually that giving obesity prone gut bacteria to sterile mice increased obesity likelihood, rather than obesity resistant mice bacteria transfering obesity resistance to sterile mice. Even in the retracted study, they didn't see obesity resistance transferring.
Perhaps gut bacteria in humans should be glacially slow. There's been at least one death in humans from fecal transplant.7 -
The whole digestive bacteria issue is too new and controversial for some of the folks at my fitness pal. They won't accept that a fecal transplant from a thin mouse to an obese mouse results in it getting thin.
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
Anyway fecal transplant research for weight loss is advancing glacially slowly, it would not surprise me if 10 years from now it hasn't advanced past tiny human trials.
It's kind of ridiculous to assume that the gut bacteria in a thin person is automatically thriving on a "healthy diet" and that diet would be "gone" once they're transplanted to the gut of an obese person. Thin people eat in a wide variety of ways, some of them quite unhealthy. And obese people eat in a wide variety of ways, including eating nutrient dense food.
The relevant thing here is the amount of calories relative to energy use. That's the only thing you can conclude about someone's diet based on them being thin -- that they have found a way of eating that matches their calorie intake to the amount of energy they use.
Now that I'm thin, I eat pretty much the same way I did when I was overweight. I just eat less of it.10 -
The whole digestive bacteria issue is too new and controversial for some of the folks at my fitness pal. They won't accept that a fecal transplant from a thin mouse to an obese mouse results in it getting thin.
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
Anyway fecal transplant research for weight loss is advancing glacially slowly, it would not surprise me if 10 years from now it hasn't advanced past tiny human trials.
It is not that it is too new, it is that it is too familiar. Dramatic new obesity cures have been coming my entire life and well before. None of them have ever panned out. Hanging your hat on weight loss science is disappointing and a waste of time/energy that is better served just trying to spend most days in some kind of a calorie deficit. One of the best things I did was stop looking for the answer outside of just eating less and, as it became possible, moving more.8 -
The real question is what came first, the chicken or the egg? Does a diverse gut biome help someone to be thin or do thin people just have a more diverse gut because their guts are healthy? I think thin people are more likely to have healthy guts.
Inflammation in the gut can cause leptin resistance which can lead to weight gain. Leptin is a hormone your body releases that inhibits hunger. In people who have an inflamed gut their body may not be adequately absorbing nutrients due to the inflammation. The lack of proper nutrition may lead to leptin resistance. The body may be releasing leptin but the brain doesn't recognize it the same way during leptin resistance causing hunger sensations to be present for a longer period of time or to be present again very soon after eating. It's pretty hard to stay thin or even maintain weight when you're hungry all the time.
But how does a person develop the inflammation in the gut? Was it a toxic gut biome due to a lack of diverse flora that caused inflammation, or was the inflammation caused by consumption of things the body does not tolerate well leading to an inflammatory response?
For me, I discovered (over a very lengthy process of trial and error) that I was causing my own gut to be inflamed because I was consuming foods I shouldn't and they were irritating my intestines. The inflammation led to my leptin resistance and I was hungry all the time. I had to eat once every two hours to stave off hunger, sometimes every 90 minutes. There were times when eating a meal would not get rid of the hunger signals at all and I would stay hungry until the next meal. I told my doctor that the only other time I had felt this way was when I was pregnant. My DO said it was just hormone fluctuations with aging. There was no way I could maintain my weight while I was experiencing these hunger pains.
I went on a restricted diet because my husband needed to do so due to his intestinal problems. It actually helped me more than it helped him. It reduced sensitivities in my intestines that I didn't know I had and my gut healed in about 6 weeks. I didn't lose a lot of weight during that time but dropped 4.5 inches off my waist and my hunger issues faded too. I don't have to eat every two hours any more. I sleep better and have more energy. I also have less pain overall in my body.
If having a healthy gut biome was all it would take to heal my unhealthy gut (and reverse my leptin resistance from inflammation) leading towards beging thin then adding probiotics and prebiotics to my diet would have helped me. Instead when I tried this it actually gave me diarrhea (every single time).
In studies where individuals had a diverse gut biome it showed that those individuals had a very diverse diet (like the Hadza). But I don't eat a more diverse diet now than I did before. If anything my diet is now highly restrictive. I am now losing the weight I gained because I now know the specific cause of my weight gain. As we all know, many people have different causes and there is never one solution for weight gain difficulties.
Having a higher level of diverse flora in the gut of thinner people may be looking at one of the benefits of having a healthy gut but not necessarily the causality of being thin. Healthy guts don't have inflammation and might be able to support a wider variety of gut flora than inflamed guts.6 -
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
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I can tell you that my gut bacteria has lived on a relatively all junk food diet and been just fine. I’ve been thin on a healthy diet and I’ve been thin on an unhealthy diet.
I think I should write a book based on my completely unfounded, unscientific, observationally based theory that weight has more to do with anxiety response than anything else. Here’s my theory. The world is split up into three groups.
1st group - Can’t eat when stressed/anxious. As it seems the majority of us tend to live under fairly high stress environments, these are your “naturally thin/ hard gainer” people, although they will gain weight during times of happiness/low stress. They tend to drop the weight naturally the next time another stressful incident arises.
2nd group - Overeat when stressed/anxious. These are your overweight since childhood people who lose weight through willpower and determination.
3rd group - your emotionally stable, average weight group. These are the people who go through life not ever really thinking about their weight.4 -
mom23mangos wrote: »
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
.
I can tell you that my gut bacteria has lived on a relatively all junk food diet and been just fine. I’ve been thin on a healthy diet and I’ve been thin on an unhealthy diet.
I think I should write a book based on my completely unfounded, unscientific, observationally based theory that weight has more to do with anxiety response than anything else. Here’s my theory. The world is split up into three groups.
1st group - Can’t eat when stressed/anxious. As it seems the majority of us tend to live under fairly high stress environments, these are your “naturally thin/ hard gainer” people, although they will gain weight during times of happiness/low stress. They tend to drop the weight naturally the next time another stressful incident arises.
2nd group - Overeat when stressed/anxious. These are your overweight since childhood people who lose weight through willpower and determination.
3rd group - your emotionally stable, average weight group. These are the people who go through life not ever really thinking about their weight.
I have both the first issues. When I'm mildly or moderately stressed, I do strongly tend to want to manage that with food (which I can usually control with conscious thought and strategies for anxiety reduction). But once my stress gets over a certain amount, it's really hard to eat enough to meet my needs.
I guess terms like "stress" and "high stress" can be relative, but I've struggled with both. I do agree with you about the categories, I just think it's possible for individuals to flow between different categories during different periods/seasons of their lives. On an average day, I am much more a type 1.2 -
@janejellyroll - I agree that people can fluctuate between groups at different points in their life and I've also heard from other people that are like you-Group 2 with moderate stress and Group 1 with extreme stress. I don't know if I have a very low stress tolerance or just have more than my fair share of extreme stressors, but tend to fall mostly in Group 1.0
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mom23mangos wrote: »
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
.
I can tell you that my gut bacteria has lived on a relatively all junk food diet and been just fine. I’ve been thin on a healthy diet and I’ve been thin on an unhealthy diet.
I think I should write a book based on my completely unfounded, unscientific, observationally based theory that weight has more to do with anxiety response than anything else. Here’s my theory. The world is split up into three groups.
1st group - Can’t eat when stressed/anxious. As it seems the majority of us tend to live under fairly high stress environments, these are your “naturally thin/ hard gainer” people, although they will gain weight during times of happiness/low stress. They tend to drop the weight naturally the next time another stressful incident arises.
2nd group - Overeat when stressed/anxious. These are your overweight since childhood people who lose weight through willpower and determination.
3rd group - your emotionally stable, average weight group. These are the people who go through life not ever really thinking about their weight.
Not just pot stirring when I say this: AFAIK, I don't have either the group 1 or group 2 issues. I overate because food is good, and I enjoy pleasure. I ate a little above maintenance when under stress and when not under stress, until reaching an approximate point of stable weight just into class 1 obese, then stayed roughly around there for years, through stress and non-stress, and through major changes in exercise or daily life activity (not calorie counting).TMI section:From reading anecdotes here, it seems like there are quite a few people (maybe still a minority, dunno) who gained weight when they switched from being an active teenager/twenty-something to being a sedentary-job 30+ person (and some kept creeping up in weight from there).
I stayed fat but didn't noticeably gain when my work responsibilities became so intense that I worked 7 days a week (10-18 hours a day) for 3 solid months except one Sunday when I went to my parents-in-laws' 50th anniversary party, and I still stayed fat/didn't gain when that project was over and I gradually resumed normal life. I stayed fat but didn't gain when my huband got cancer and died, and after; nor when my dad fell and blinded himself and I had to help him move from fully independent in his own home to assisted living at age 83. I admit I lost a few pounds during cancer treatment, but jeesh, there were a lot of times I couldn't eat, and since I lost only maybe 10 pounds in around 6 months it was only around a 100 calorie average daily deficit (I'm not counting the surgical loss), and I gradually regained it after. I stayed at about the same weight when I went from completely inactive to competing athletically, I stayed about the same weight when I retired and stress evaporated from my life to a large degree (and non-exercise activity probably dropped).
End TMI.
I'm not denying that the groups in your post exist: I think they do. I just don't think it's universal.0 -
mom23mangos wrote: »
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
.
I can tell you that my gut bacteria has lived on a relatively all junk food diet and been just fine. I’ve been thin on a healthy diet and I’ve been thin on an unhealthy diet.
I think I should write a book based on my completely unfounded, unscientific, observationally based theory that weight has more to do with anxiety response than anything else. Here’s my theory. The world is split up into three groups.
1st group - Can’t eat when stressed/anxious. As it seems the majority of us tend to live under fairly high stress environments, these are your “naturally thin/ hard gainer” people, although they will gain weight during times of happiness/low stress. They tend to drop the weight naturally the next time another stressful incident arises.
2nd group - Overeat when stressed/anxious. These are your overweight since childhood people who lose weight through willpower and determination.
3rd group - your emotionally stable, average weight group. These are the people who go through life not ever really thinking about their weight.
Not just pot stirring when I say this: AFAIK, I don't have either the group 1 or group 2 issues. I overate because food is good, and I enjoy pleasure. I ate a little above maintenance when under stress and when not under stress, until reaching an approximate point of stable weight just into class 1 obese, then stayed roughly around there for years, through stress and non-stress, and through major changes in exercise or daily life activity (not calorie counting).TMI section:From reading anecdotes here, it seems like there are quite a few people (maybe still a minority, dunno) who gained weight when they switched from being an active teenager/twenty-something to being a sedentary-job 30+ person (and some kept creeping up in weight from there).
I stayed fat but didn't noticeably gain when my work responsibilities became so intense that I worked 7 days a week (10-18 hours a day) for 3 solid months except one Sunday when I went to my parents-in-laws' 50th anniversary party, and I still stayed fat/didn't gain when that project was over and I gradually resumed normal life. I stayed fat but didn't gain when my huband got cancer and died, and after; nor when my dad fell and blinded himself and I had to help him move from fully independent in his own home to assisted living at age 83. I admit I lost a few pounds during cancer treatment, but jeesh, there were a lot of times I couldn't eat, and since I lost only maybe 10 pounds in around 6 months it was only around a 100 calorie average daily deficit (I'm not counting the surgical loss), and I gradually regained it after. I stayed at about the same weight when I went from completely inactive to competing athletically, I stayed about the same weight when I retired and stress evaporated from my life to a large degree (and non-exercise activity probably dropped).
End TMI.
I'm not denying that the groups in your post exist: I think they do. I just don't think it's universal.
I think those people most likely fall into Category 3. They are emotionally stable and didn't have to think about weight until something changed to throw off the stasis (ie less movement). Now maybe there's a category 4 out there for those with hedonistic tendencies, but I would postulate that they may be Category 2's in disguise (ie food = comfort).
But as you know, my method of deductions are PURELY scientific.
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mom23mangos wrote: »
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
.
I can tell you that my gut bacteria has lived on a relatively all junk food diet and been just fine. I’ve been thin on a healthy diet and I’ve been thin on an unhealthy diet.
I think I should write a book based on my completely unfounded, unscientific, observationally based theory that weight has more to do with anxiety response than anything else. Here’s my theory. The world is split up into three groups.
1st group - Can’t eat when stressed/anxious. As it seems the majority of us tend to live under fairly high stress environments, these are your “naturally thin/ hard gainer” people, although they will gain weight during times of happiness/low stress. They tend to drop the weight naturally the next time another stressful incident arises.
2nd group - Overeat when stressed/anxious. These are your overweight since childhood people who lose weight through willpower and determination.
3rd group - your emotionally stable, average weight group. These are the people who go through life not ever really thinking about their weight.
Not just pot stirring when I say this: AFAIK, I don't have either the group 1 or group 2 issues. I overate because food is good, and I enjoy pleasure. I ate a little above maintenance when under stress and when not under stress, until reaching an approximate point of stable weight just into class 1 obese, then stayed roughly around there for years, through stress and non-stress, and through major changes in exercise or daily life activity (not calorie counting).TMI section:From reading anecdotes here, it seems like there are quite a few people (maybe still a minority, dunno) who gained weight when they switched from being an active teenager/twenty-something to being a sedentary-job 30+ person (and some kept creeping up in weight from there).
I stayed fat but didn't noticeably gain when my work responsibilities became so intense that I worked 7 days a week (10-18 hours a day) for 3 solid months except one Sunday when I went to my parents-in-laws' 50th anniversary party, and I still stayed fat/didn't gain when that project was over and I gradually resumed normal life. I stayed fat but didn't gain when my huband got cancer and died, and after; nor when my dad fell and blinded himself and I had to help him move from fully independent in his own home to assisted living at age 83. I admit I lost a few pounds during cancer treatment, but jeesh, there were a lot of times I couldn't eat, and since I lost only maybe 10 pounds in around 6 months it was only around a 100 calorie average daily deficit (I'm not counting the surgical loss), and I gradually regained it after. I stayed at about the same weight when I went from completely inactive to competing athletically, I stayed about the same weight when I retired and stress evaporated from my life to a large degree (and non-exercise activity probably dropped).
End TMI.
I'm not denying that the groups in your post exist: I think they do. I just don't think it's universal.
Yes, I'll agree that when I was overweight some of it was stress eating but a big chunk of it was just . . . eating because I liked the way certain foods tasted and I liked the sensation of being full. There wasn't necessarily an emotional component to it. If I was having fun with friends, I'd overeat. If I saw something that looked good, I'd overeat. If I was bored, I might seek out something to eat. It wasn't all stress-eating ice cream and chips, it was more a lifestyle where I just regularly ate more than I needed.5 -
"Thin people have more gut microbes than fat people; having hungry microbes may at least partly account for thinness."
Says Bill Bryson in the book "The Body".
What are your thoughts?
Since one can read we all have 10 to 100 trillion microbes making up one's microbiome I gather it is not so much about more or less but the balance of the trillions that one has.
https://hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/microbiome/2 -
I don't know about that . . . a range of 10 to 100 trillion could potentially lead to relevant, observable differences between people at the low and high ends of the range. I'm not arguing that we now know what they are or that they even exist, but I think the numbers are significant enough that they could exist.0
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Possibly one should ask, what has changed the microbiome. I know through time there have been large and small people. I know the lives we live now are vastly different to those we led a few hundred years ago. The discovery of cane sugar and all its related evils has done a fair bit to hijack our sweet tooth making it much easier to fill without stuffing ourselves with buries.
Another major change is our "much needed" reliance on medications, there are long lists available, including antibiotics which are designed to rid us of the bacteria which causes what ever it is that ails us. Regrettably this reliance on antibiotics has not taken into account the other bacteria which is also lost with their use. Back in the '70s or so copper was introduced to female contraception, (coil). Copper is a antibacterial to rid ourselves of the least helpful bacteria. Were all door handles made of or covered in copper there would be many times fewer bacterial problems.
Also there are some piles of medical papers which point to the necessary use of C-sections to save mothers lives reducing the number of microbe species the child would confront and benefit from were it on a regular into this world compared without this intervention.
We are learning all the time, if we choose to read. If you look on the shelves in UK Health food shops you will see packets of products designed to replace microbes lost to antibiotics and medication along with ones for people who travel or know they have a disrupted microbiome. Not all doctors recommend the use of microbes after antibiotics but some do. I cant remember the lactobacillus which is said to aid weight loss, sorry. Having the best diet full of fibres, fruit and veg is not always enough to replace microbes lost to the medical interventions we rely on.
The microbiome of an indigenous person who eats as their forbears did is vastly preferable to those of us living on the modern diet. This still leaves us in the circular question. "Do thin people have more digestive microbes than a fat person". The answer could be possibly more species. Certainly they will be very different. Its possible the thin persons ancestors have relied on fewer modern interventions than the stocky one.
One thing I do know, having grown up in the '50's when antibiotics were generally very different, having tonsillitis every 6 weeks for an extended period with antibiotics every time. My health was compromised from an early age.20 years ago I had chemical sensitivity and way, way more to contend with. When I eventually discovered a digestive microbe product which did not increase microbes which also increase Histamine Levels I gave them a go. I felt alive for the first time in years. (An answer to Histamine Intolerance is, vit c and vit b6 but look it up) Its true I'd not tried other microbe products because why make a health issue much worse when you don't need to.
There is more to this microbiome thing than we yet know. When the medical profession started doing biome transfers more was discovered than people got better health as expected. Some people became thin like their donors conversely others gained weight taking on the shape of their donors.
My answer is, the thin person has more digestive microbe species than the fat one. Thought there will always be those who abuse their bodies with too many modern overly processed foods.
I expect a flurry of disagrees what I have written is why to controversial for most of you. Have fun.1 -
The microbiome of an indigenous person who eats as their forbears did is vastly preferable to those of us living on the modern diet.
Is this based on data or is this an opinion?
If it's an opinion, I guess I would ask - are the benefits transferrable to non-indigenous people who adopt the diet of any indigenous group? If I, as a non-indigenous person, try to achieve this same "preferable" microbiome, am I sacrificing the benefits if I eat only the foods traditionally available to indigenous people, but combine foods from different areas/diet patterns? What does "modern diet" mean - are we talking about things like chilling food, eating food from different areas, eating out of season, eating foods that were not grown/hunted by my household, or something else entirely?
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I'll take my chances with antibiotics when I have a raging bacterial infection.
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No mine was not an opinion piece. If one looks and reads the evidence is there for the enquiring mind, Most on here have enquiring minds, I consider the two posters between my posts are among them.
I'd hoped to get across the general impression that antibiotics and other medications are not "totally bad" just that they have the potential for severe down sides. I would not want to live without them but its good to have the ability to make up some of the deficit they create. Discovering what underlays modern health issues is getting somewhere towards reducing their impact. Given the opportunity and funding as well as the availability, I would have all door handles and similar surfaces covered in copper then we would not need as many antibiotics as we currently use. It would matter way less if someone left the bathroom without washing their hands. Pre covid while waiting for someone I did an observational study the result was appalling and they say boys are worse, I don't believe it.
As for the indigenous microbiome.- Here in the UK we have several science programs, on the bbc and Channel 4 which are held to account for their scientific accountability, unlike in some other countries. These programs have shown in their relevant diet related output have shown "an indigenous population" does not have the autoimmune conditions etc as we in the western world do. I did say, "overly processed foods" so if you eat as your ancestors did your microbiome would stand a better chance of be as healthy as theirs. Returning to my lavatorial tone from above its appalling the lavatorial microbes found on computer keyboards! Which is why I would have all door handles made in copper. If one had to choose then it would be hospital doors and high street doors when microbial infections would be radically reduced.1 -
mom23mangos wrote: »mom23mangos wrote: »
However one online comment from years ago has stayed with me. How will the thinness causing bacteria react to junk food? Each bacteria has a preferred type of food to munch on. Will eating copious amounts of junk food kill off the thin bacteria? They thrived on a healthy diet. That's gone.
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I can tell you that my gut bacteria has lived on a relatively all junk food diet and been just fine. I’ve been thin on a healthy diet and I’ve been thin on an unhealthy diet.
I think I should write a book based on my completely unfounded, unscientific, observationally based theory that weight has more to do with anxiety response than anything else. Here’s my theory. The world is split up into three groups.
1st group - Can’t eat when stressed/anxious. As it seems the majority of us tend to live under fairly high stress environments, these are your “naturally thin/ hard gainer” people, although they will gain weight during times of happiness/low stress. They tend to drop the weight naturally the next time another stressful incident arises.
2nd group - Overeat when stressed/anxious. These are your overweight since childhood people who lose weight through willpower and determination.
3rd group - your emotionally stable, average weight group. These are the people who go through life not ever really thinking about their weight.
Not just pot stirring when I say this: AFAIK, I don't have either the group 1 or group 2 issues. I overate because food is good, and I enjoy pleasure. I ate a little above maintenance when under stress and when not under stress, until reaching an approximate point of stable weight just into class 1 obese, then stayed roughly around there for years, through stress and non-stress, and through major changes in exercise or daily life activity (not calorie counting).TMI section:From reading anecdotes here, it seems like there are quite a few people (maybe still a minority, dunno) who gained weight when they switched from being an active teenager/twenty-something to being a sedentary-job 30+ person (and some kept creeping up in weight from there).
I stayed fat but didn't noticeably gain when my work responsibilities became so intense that I worked 7 days a week (10-18 hours a day) for 3 solid months except one Sunday when I went to my parents-in-laws' 50th anniversary party, and I still stayed fat/didn't gain when that project was over and I gradually resumed normal life. I stayed fat but didn't gain when my huband got cancer and died, and after; nor when my dad fell and blinded himself and I had to help him move from fully independent in his own home to assisted living at age 83. I admit I lost a few pounds during cancer treatment, but jeesh, there were a lot of times I couldn't eat, and since I lost only maybe 10 pounds in around 6 months it was only around a 100 calorie average daily deficit (I'm not counting the surgical loss), and I gradually regained it after. I stayed at about the same weight when I went from completely inactive to competing athletically, I stayed about the same weight when I retired and stress evaporated from my life to a large degree (and non-exercise activity probably dropped).
End TMI.
I'm not denying that the groups in your post exist: I think they do. I just don't think it's universal.
I think those people most likely fall into Category 3. They are emotionally stable and didn't have to think about weight until something changed to throw off the stasis (ie less movement). Now maybe there's a category 4 out there for those with hedonistic tendencies, but I would postulate that they may be Category 2's in disguise (ie food = comfort).
But as you know, my method of deductions are PURELY scientific.
I think your categorization is interesting and useful. I like it.
I'm not arguing for a "hedonist" category. I'm arguing for an "other" category that encompasses potentially dozens of reasons people gain weight, that have nothing to do with emotions or stress.
I think it's fairly common to think that others are generally like us internally, in important ways, and to frame our interpretations of others accordingly. In this specific case, I think it truly is fairly common to imbue food with a strong emotional weight, and agree that that can cut both ways wrt stress as you say, but I don't think emotion or stress is universally the driver of bodyweight issues. (I have no idea what the percentages are.) For those for whom food/eating actually is emotionally significant, I think it's natural to believe that a high percentage of people are similar.
I suspect a lot of people get fat because we tend to sleepwalk through life, mostly doing what other people do; and the culture of ubiquitous calorie-dense food, and increasingly sedentary jobs/leisure activities, plus being surrounded by other people who are lifelong overweight or gaining, is what gets a lot of people fat. I suspect emotional issues sit on top of that background.
As someone who was adult before 1980, usually seen as somewhere near the genesis of the "obesity crisis", I don't think that the average person's life is MuchMuch more stressful now vs. then, although others may differ on that point. (I suspect especially those whose exposure to the period has more Nick at Night family sitcoms from that era than experience, and whose current-day life stresses were things that weren't as common then, may be more likely to believe that).
BTW, I'm not saying that I never ever have stress eaten, or stress-skipped eating, or that I never find food comforting. I'm saying that for me, those things are not major drivers of bodyweight. I could parse the details more subtly than "hedonism" , but I don't think stress eating or emotional eating was a huge factor in how I got and stayed obese for decades. I suspect there are an unknown-sized group of others who are similar. 1 -
No mine was not an opinion piece. If one looks and reads the evidence is there for the enquiring mind, Most on here have enquiring minds, I consider the two posters between my posts are among them.
I'd hoped to get across the general impression that antibiotics and other medications are not "totally bad" just that they have the potential for severe down sides. I would not want to live without them but its good to have the ability to make up some of the deficit they create. Discovering what underlays modern health issues is getting somewhere towards reducing their impact. Given the opportunity and funding as well as the availability, I would have all door handles and similar surfaces covered in copper then we would not need as many antibiotics as we currently use. It would matter way less if someone left the bathroom without washing their hands. Pre covid while waiting for someone I did an observational study the result was appalling and they say boys are worse, I don't believe it.
As for the indigenous microbiome.- Here in the UK we have several science programs, on the bbc and Channel 4 which are held to account for their scientific accountability, unlike in some other countries. These programs have shown in their relevant diet related output have shown "an indigenous population" does not have the autoimmune conditions etc as we in the western world do. I did say, "overly processed foods" so if you eat as your ancestors did your microbiome would stand a better chance of be as healthy as theirs. Returning to my lavatorial tone from above its appalling the lavatorial microbes found on computer keyboards! Which is why I would have all door handles made in copper. If one had to choose then it would be hospital doors and high street doors when microbial infections would be radically reduced.
The programs, presumably, didn't conduct the studies demonstrating the assertion that indigenous populations following a traditional dietary pattern have better microbiome outcomes than both indigenous populations who don't, non-indigenous populations who do, and non-indigenous populations who don't. Comparing results between these four populations would be the only way to demonstrate that statement is "fact" rather than "opinion."
I don't know if we can know for a fact, either, than our ancestors had healthier microbiomes than we do. Some of them may have, but some of them lived in really unhealthy or insecure conditions that impacted their overall health.
I don't eat a traditional Irish pre-colonial diet (lots of grains and milk, some vegetables and fruit, some meat), I'm not sure that it's something I need to do for good health. Nor do I think my body can tell the difference between a healthfully constructed recreation of an Irish pre-colonial diet and a healthfully constructed recreation a diet of what someone else's ancestors ate. Given that there are very few people who are doing either, I don't think we could draw any conclusions about it resulting in better health outcomes or not.
What we have seen in studies that there do seem to be positive health outcomes with indigenous people adopting a more traditional dietary style, but it could be that is associated with it being a healthier diet overall. I don't know of anything demonstrating that it has to be that specific diet only (as opposed to one of the dozens of pre-colonial dietary patterns around the world) or that the improvements are microbiome-specific.
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Without going back and rereading the thread closely (though I've been following it as it happened), my interested-amateur's reading about microbiome suggests there are at least two separate things to think about when it comes to having a "good" microbiome (even though we can't define what that is, yet, scientifically ).
1. Acquiring desirable bugs in the first place.
2. Keeping those bugs happy and doing their thing, long term, through various challenges.
I feel like these aspects are being jumbled unhelpfully in some of the previous posts, when they're both important.
The rest of this should be qualified with "in my amateur understanding, from interested but limited study".
WRT acquiring the bugs:
Some research does seem to showing that babies born by C-section may have reduction in body (maybe not just gut) microbiome composition/diversity, compared to babies that exit through mom's birth canal, and that that difference persists.
Digestively, many people are relying on probiotic supplements, though there seems to be limited evidence about which bugs are good/important to include, and whether they're willing to stick around in the body long enough to be meaningful.
Lots of human activities affect the acquisition, and some of those routes may be affected positively or negatively by common elements of modern lifestyle (disinfectants, antibiotics, commonness of international travel and exchange as a bug vector, reduced average hands-on interaction with nature in modern life, who knows what else).
Not all acquirable bugs are beneficial, obviously. There are good guys, and bad guys, even if we're not completely clear about which are which. Some may even turn out to be good in some situations, harmful in others, who knows?
WRT keeping bugs happy:
It seems fairly clear that particular overall way(s) of eating have a significant influence on keeping certain gut bugs happy, thriving, and long-term present in the body (true for beneficial bugs, also not so beneficial ones). It's not clear exactly which diets do which things, but it seems pretty clear that just acquiring good bugs, or eliminating bad ones, depends on our supporting the good ones by the way we eat.
There are some signs that some bugs are pretty robust/persistent, and others more challenging to keep around. So, I think, simplistically speaking, one would get the whole cross-table: Good bugs that are hard to get, hard to keep; easy to get, hard to keep; etc. Ditto for injurious bugs.
Overall, I think that "just get a gut bug transplant, then keep eating the same food in the same amounts" idea is mostly a non-starter. I think it'll turn out that we need to tend our good bugs, just like we'd tend our kids, pets, or houseplants . . . but internally. And we'll want to pull out the weeds . . . somehow.
It's good that our bodies and the bugs have millennia of experience doing this naturally, or we'd be SOL at current confirmed scientific knowledge levels.
Our bug-tending will need to include (somehow) replenishing them if we wipe some out. (Yeah, eat the yogurt after you take the antibiotics, but that's probably not the whole story.) It may include continuously acquiring some that are beneficial, but don't persist in the body. Again, who knows?
Introducing another idea that isn't either acquiring nor sustaining bugs:
Is there a genetic component in which bugs are beneficial, or not? I agree with Jane, I haven't seem persuasive evidence that there is, but I'd be a little bit surprised if there weren't. (It's a different realm, but I'd point out the genetic patterns of lactose tolerance as one of my reasons for saying this.)
It seems like if there are such cases (where genetic adaptation has happened evolutionarily on both sides of the symbiotic relationship), then those genetic factors would be most likely to be most present among human groups who were relatively isolated for relatively larger blocks of relatively more recent history. For example, some indigenous groups in some modern countries have a long history of genetic/social isolation, as do some island populations, at least until relatively recent generations, whereas (say) some of the peoples of the Mediterranean basin have been exchanging bugs with Europe, Asian, and Africa for millennia, and other zones for a few centuries.
Does historical isolation, or its inverse, make a difference, either gentically or via what we acquire automatically from our immediate environment, or sustain via our cultural practices? Probably, but who knows?
This whole subject, IMO, is rife with both known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, but darned few known knowns. I'm grateful, personally, for the stuff that Just Works, without much attention.
Still, I'm putting my behavioral bets on the idea that eating in ways that are well-understood to be nutritious and sensible, is going to be the best I can do at this point to support the good guys and discourage the injurious ones.
For sure, I think it's absurd to hope for a gut-bug transplant or pill that lets us eat in any stupid way, but reap the health benefits of a nutritious, calorie-appropriate diet. Pipe dream.2 -
Is there a genetic component in which bugs are beneficial, or not? I agree with Jane, I haven't seem persuasive evidence that there is, but I'd be a little bit surprised if there weren't. (It's a different realm, but I'd point out the genetic patterns of lactose tolerance as one of my reasons for saying this.)
This is total speculation here, but I wouldn't be surprised if we someday learned that multiple cultures have "discovered" ways to support good bugs with the foods that are available to them -- that is, there are different ways to do it through diet, but it will look different given the foods available in a specific area. So it's less a case of finding the "right" diet for your ancestry than it is of eating in a way that is based on/reminiscent of ANY successful dietary pattern. I agree that eating in ways that are time-tested is a smart strategy - I just don't necessarily think that it has to be tailored to what our specific ancestors ate (or rather, we don't have the evidence right now to think it does, that evidence may be available in the future).
(I don't think successful is the right word, but I can't think of a better one. I just mean it seems like any culture that unlocked the "trick" of supporting a population on locally available foods long enough to achieve stability probably has a diet that could be considered as generally supporting good health).
Either way, it's a very interesting thing to ponder. If it wasn't for veganism, I think I'd be quite happy on the pre-colonial Irish diet -- dairy, grains, cabbage, onions, garlic, apples, wild greens and berries, some fish and seaweed. Take out the dairy and fish, add some beans and it's not that different from what I'm eating now, so maybe I've accidentally backed into something smart.
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