A new study, published in Science Translational Medicine, succeeded in showing that the human gut microbiota can successfully be transferred to germ-free mice, and that this can then be passed on from mother to offspring.
What's that mean in normal language? It means all those overweight people (and I'm one of them) who say "I really don't eat more than thin people" may be telling the simple truth.
From lean to obese
When researchers transferred these "fat bacteria" into mice bred without any microorganisms in their guts (germ-free mice), and fed them a high-fat, high-sugar, Western-style diet, they recorded a rapid change in the population of gut bacteria present, compared to mice fed a low-fat diet: The mice showed an increase in body fat.
n fact, simply transplanting the microbiota from the high-fat fed mice into a set of germ-free mice caused the new mice to accumulate more body fat, even though they were fed a low-fat diet.
Implications for Prebiotics
At a scientific conference in April 2008, Dr. Kieran Touhy from the University of Reading stated obese animals have significantly lower bifidobacteria levels than their lean counterparts, which suggests potential for prebiotic fibrer, since the growth of these bacteria is selectively promoted by inulin and fructooligosaccharides.
Dr. Nathalie Delzenne from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and Dr. Robert Welch from the University of Ulster presented results from animal and human studies, respectively, which indicated the potential of prebiotic supplementation to regulated food intake.
