"Thin people have more gut microbes than fat people"

threewins 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.

@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.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

mom23mangos wrote: »

threewins 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:
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.

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'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.

amandaeve wrote: »

"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/

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.

I'll take my chances with antibiotics when I have a raging bacterial infection.

mom23mangos wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

mom23mangos wrote: »

threewins 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:
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.

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'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.

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.