The first studies on this question were intriguing.
Take two rats specially created to be free from germs. Give a mouse intestine bacterium from a fine person and an intestinal bacterium from an obese person. Feed them the same amount of chow and something impressive will happen: the mouse given bacteria of a lean person will be thin. The mouse given bacteria of an obese person will gain weight.
. Studies that analyzed the intestinal bacteria of lean and obese twins have found that lean people have many different types of bacteria than obese people.
and in a widely discussed case, a woman who had never experienced weight problems won 30 pounds after obtaining a fecal transplantation of her excess teenage daughter.
Now the researchers are just beginning to solve the question: will change the bacteria of the intestine of a person to change their weight?
Elaine W. Yu, MD, an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is launching a study by examining whether the capsules of obese people from frozen fecal bacteria from lean donors will help them lose weight. We ask her why she is trying this approach and what she expects to learn from the study.
. WebMD: Have a suggested study that changing a person's intestine bacteria can help them lose weight?
. Yu: There are not many human studies. But there has been a couple.
There was a study published a few years ago he looked at fecal microbiota transplants (FMT). They took 18 patients and randomly assigned them to receive active FMT or a placebo (their own bacteria that were given to them). They looked at changes in insulin sensitivity. They found that these patients who received FMT of thin donors had improvements in insulin sensitivity.Green Tea Pill Weight Loss - Testing a 'Poop Pill' For Weight Loss
There have been other studies that analyzed what happens to metabolism when you give short courses of antibiotics and found some effects. That was seen in humans and animals.
But in terms of randomized, controlled trials in humans, looking at the weight as a result, there are not many of those. That's why we are doing our study.
. WebMD: What do you think it might work?
. Yu: There is much indirect evidence on the links between intestinal bacteria and body weight. For example, we already know is that overweight people and obese animals have different intestinal bacterial communities compared to thin people or lean animals.
Another piece of evidence is that in an experimental environment, you can make free mice and feed them large quantities of food, and are resistant to induced obesity by diet, despite eating more food than his fellow garbage. This is because they have an increased metabolism. If this is due to the lack of microbes in your gut, we do not know. This is certainly a very clear case.
Then there is also some evidence that exposure to antibiotics in early life, either in humans or in animals, is associated with becoming overweight later in life.
But in science, to establish a clear relationship and causing between microbes and disease, you have to transfer a germ of an organism and put it into another organism and see if it causes disease, or in this case, the opposite of the disease. That's what we're trying to do.
. WebMD: How your study work?
. Yu: We are taking individuals who have some type of obesity and metabolic disorder [as insulin resistance] and we are giving them samples FMT lean and healthy donors and we will monitor their body weight and metabolism later. / P>.
. WebMD: How do you know if your donors have bacteria that help weight loss? You are checking them for specific species?
. Unfortunately, I do not think we are at the stage where we know which species are beneficial. We are still in a very rudimentary stage, where only took the entire community of intestinal bacteria from a healthy individual and transferred that in individuals who have certain disorders such as C. Difeira, inflammatory bowel disease or obesity. We are not yet at the stage of identifying, 'OK, these are five species that are good that we need to introduce.' We are not there yet.
Once finished the study and if there are improvements in metabolism, is where the real nitty gritty work will occur where we will try to drill down and find out what species which communities were those that caused these improvements.
.. WebMD: You will have a donor for all study participants?
. Yu:. No There will be several donors. And it is possible that there may be differences between donors. We have extremely strict criteria for who can be a donor. We had to get a special permit from the FDA - called an Ind to new application of investigational drugs - to do so.
There are potential risks to these fecal transplants. It's a little stressful to see that there are sites and patients and people who are promoting doing it on your own because you are taking a person material and transferring it to another person. There are infectious risks associated with it. These microbes have an effect on a whole series of things. It's one of those things that must be done carefully and with much thought.
. WebMD: In terms of things that cause us to gain or lose weight - calories, exercises, etc. - Where the intestinal bacteria fit into the equation? Any guess on how big or small their role be?
. Yu: I can not even try to give you a number. We simply do not know enough about it. What makes it even more difficult is that the systems are so highly interconnected.
It is very obvious that diet affects weight. And of course, it is our hypothesis that gut microbes can also affect weight. But diet can also affect intestinacionais microbes, so it's not like a discrete system. And that makes it extremely difficult to find out the various contributions of these different components.
. Read more in particular the WebMD report, "weight loss mysteries."
IMPORTANT: Opinions expressed on webmd blogs are only those of the user, who may or may not have medical or scientific training. These opinions do not represent the opinions of the WebMD. Blogs are not reviewed by a WebMD physician or any member of webmd editorial staff for accuracy, balance, objectivity or any other reason, except for compliance with our terms and conditions. Some of these opinions may contain information on treatments or uses of drug products that have not been approved by the Administration of Food and Drugs U.S .. WebMD does not endorse any specific product, service or treatment.Do not consider webmd blogs as a medical advice. Never delay or disregard your doctor's professional medical advice or other qualified health provider because of something you read on WebMD. You should always talk to your doctor before you start, stop or change any prescribed part of your plan or treatment. WebMD believes that individual real-life experiences can be a useful feature, but it is never a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment of a qualified health care provider. If you think you can have a medical emergency, call your doctor or dial 911 immediately.
Read more
