Want to lose weight without dieting or exercising? Add an extra helping of human gut bugs, researchers say. Gut bacteria play a vital role in digestion. Last year, researchers found that replacing the bacteria in mouse intestines with human gut flora decreased the amount of fat absorbed by the gut. Japanese researchers have found that supplementing the diets of overweight people with one type of human gut microbe makes them lose weight.
“The bacteria may cause weight loss by inhibiting fat absorption in the intestine,” lead author Yukio Kadooka said. During the study, the team gave 87 overweight volunteers 100 grams of fermented milk, which is used to make yoghurt, twice a day, while they continued with their normal diets. The milk drunk by half of the group was enriched with Lactobacillus gasseri. After 12 weeks, these volunteers had lost an average of 1kg, while their counterparts showed no change in weight.
Scans revealed that they had lost 4.6% of their “bad”, visceral fat, which surrounds internal organs and is implicated in metabolic syndrome, and 3.3% of their subcutaneous fat, the New Scientist website reported. Hip and waist circumference also went down by an average of 1.7 and 1.5 cm respectively. “For doing absolutely nothing, that’s a lot,” says Matthew Digby, who researchers dietary milk proteins at the University of Melbourne in Australia and was not involved in the study. The bacteria may cause weight loss by inhibiting fat absorption in the intestine, said Kadooka.