'Weight loss gut bacterium' found

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nas061
nas061 Posts: 256 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Very interesting article on BBC News website.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22458428
Bacteria that live in the gut have been used to reverse obesity and Type-2 diabetes in animal studies.

Research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that a broth containing a single species of bacteria could dramatically alter the health of obese mice.

It is thought to change the gut lining and the way food is absorbed.

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  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
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    the differences in gut bacteria could be due to eating different foods, an association does not necessarily mean cause and effect

    also, if gut bacteria is "affecting" how the body absorbs food, I'd question whether that would ultimately lead to malnourishment. Generally, ability to absorb nutrition from food is a good thing, and limiting it is a bad thing. These gut bacteria may be the bacterial equivalent of Alli (that drug that prevents the absorption of fat, resulting in fat loss and a tendancy to suffer from bright orange anal leakage), rather than the best gut bacteria for health.
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
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    Just to illustrate my point, if the bacterium Salmonella enterica colonise the human gut, this results in weight loss. It also affects how the body absorbs food, i.e. the body responds by not absorbing any food at all, in order to prevent absorption of toxins secreted by the bacteria, it does this by emptying the digestive system completely (through vomiting and diarrhoea)

    yes this is an extreme example, but the idea of using bacteria to prevent the absorption of food can't be healthy. Absorption of food is a good thing.

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