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Key message: Studies have shown that ‘bad’ bacteria in your gut can increase your appetite and slow down your metabolism, contributing to weight gain.
Action point: Take a broad spectrum high strength probiotic every morning when you get up to help innoculate your gut with beneficial bacteria
Can’t shift those kilos? Your gut may be the problem.
But I’m not referring to the size of your waistline. I’m talking about the tiny residents that make up 90 per cent of our living cells – microbes. Researchers are now beginning to understand the extent of gut flora’s role in gut health and obesity.
Studies have shown that ‘bad’ bacteria in your gut can increase your appetite and slow down your metabolism, contributing to weight gain. They may also be responsible for other health problems such as diabetes.
A 2010 study found that mice without a protein known as toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5) in their gut gain excessive weight and develop full-blown diabetes and fatty liver disease when fed a high-fat diet (1).
TLR5 is important for ‘policing’ the bacteria in your gut. Without TLR5, bad bacteria can get out of control. It was found that these bad bacteria produced a low-grade inflammation in the mice, causing them to eat more and develop insulin resistance.
But that wasn’t the researchers most intriguing discovery. Even more interesting was what happened when they transferred the gut flora from the overweight (TLR5-deficient) mice into the guts of skinny mice. The skinny mice immediately started eating more and eventually developed the same metabolic abnormalities the overweight mice had.
In other words, obesity and diabetes were “transferred” from one group of mice to the other simply by changing their gut flora.
But there’s good news – the reverse can also be […]
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