Obesity Baste on 25 May 2008
Gut Microbiota Transmission Affects Body Weight Regulation
For the past almost 20 years my body weight remains constant – no matter what I eat. Bad metabolizer is what most people (and maybe textbooks) would say. Another explanation I once heard from a colleague is that people like him and me would ‘suffer’ from a reduced gut surface to body size ratio, i.e. in comparison to same size, ‘normal’ weighed people, the capacity to absorb the ‘right’ amount of nutrients is reduced in us lean ones.
But there’s more: what happens if you transfer the gut microbiota of a normal weighed mouse to a germ-free mouse? The mouse will develop a normal body weight. And how will a germ-free mouse look like after receiving the gut microbiota of an obese mouse? Overweighed! And this despite the fact that the two mouse models ingested the same amount of food.
If you want to know more about the details of the study (which has been published in Nature in 2006 already), I recommend you take 15 minutes and watch the Nature movie featuring the work of JI Gordan’s group at Washington University.
A special article by DiBaise et al. summarizes the advances in understanding “Gut microbiota and its possible relationship with obesity”, Mayo Clin Proc 2008;83:460-469
