Posted on 06/13/2006 7:37:40 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
ST. LOUIS - The microorganisms that live in your gut could explain one of the sources of obesity, says a new study from researchers at Washington University.
Bacteria live throughout the body, but some intestinal bacteria appear to be better than others at helping their hosts turn food into energy, say researchers Buck S. Samuel and Dr. Jeffrey I. Gordon.
They believe changing the mix of bacteria in the intestine could influence how much people weigh.
Bacteria and archaea, another kind of single-celled organism, are common in the human intestine. Researchers are discovering that together, they help their human hosts extract calories and nutrients from food.
"We know very little about who they are and what they do," said Dr. Martin J. Blaser, chair of medicine at New York University.
Samuel decided to investigate that question by inoculating identical mice with different microbes, or a combination of two of the single-celled organisms.
The researchers found mice whose guts were inoculated with just the bacterium Beta thetaiotaomicron (B. theta) could process rodent food better than mice that were given no bacteria.
A second group of mice were inoculated with a combination of B. theta and an archaeon called Methanobrevibacter smithii (M. smithii). Those rodents could extract many more calories from the same amount of food, but they stored the extra energy as excess fat.
The researchers haven't yet concluded whether obese people have more M. smithii in their intestines. But Blaser said he believes scientists could eventually help control human nutrition by manipulating the types of microbes living in the gut.
The results of the study will be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Excuses, excuses. You can't get fat unless you eat more than you burn.
Hey, doc. I need to lose a few pounds. Gimme the bug pill.
Gee, and all along I had the silly notion that it was calories taken in vs. calories burned off. Doh!
Speak for yourself, dude! I take a bath every day!
Yogurt.. it is the best. live cultures in it replenish the intestinal flora aiding in digestion and solving a host of stomach problems.
Eat more yogurt!
I've only been around for 50 years or so, and I know there are differences in metabolism, etc.
However, I've noticed in 100% of my observations that fat people eat more than I do. I've never seen them eat less. Not once.
NO easy answers-- it's called diet and exercise.
Will they issue a press release?
Wow...great. Now I don't have to worry about that 2 week old leftover pizza in the frig!
Ban the spoons, forks and food, sue the manufacturers, growers of food.
Interesting article. This seems very plausible to me. I have some serious GI problems and my Dr. has me taking probiotics to keep me from losing weight. It's not that much of stretch to think that too much of those same bacteria could cause an otherwise healthy person to gain weight.
"If God had wanted me to be thin, He would have given me more bacterium Beta thetaiotaomicron -- it's not my fault!!!!!"
This has been a theory of mine for many years. Fact is, there has always been something left out of the energy equation. The two factors we have been looking at are CaloriesIn and CaloriesExpended. I have thought that we needed a multipliers for CaloriesIn, something like Absorbed or Digested. So if CaloriesIn*Digested > CaloriesExpended, you will have weight gain. Some intestinal flora will increase your Digested quotient. This explains a former girlfriend of mine who was as thin as a rail, but ate MORE than me. However, she also spent quite a bit of time in the restroom....
Yes, but you'll have to really squint to read it.
Poking Ho-Ho's down yer pie-hole don't help.
And they always drink Diet Coke. Series. Has anyone seen a fat person drink anything other than Diet Coke at lunch?
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