By Dr. Mercola
Recent studies have repeatedly demonstrated that the makeup
of your intestinal flora can have an impact on your weight, and
your propensity to gain or lose weight.
Most recently, research1
also suggests that as much as 20 percent of the substantial
weight loss achieved from gastric bypass, a popular weight loss
surgery, is actually due to shifts in the balance of bacteria in
your digestive tract. According to co-author Dr. Lee M. Kaplan:2
“The findings mean that eventually, treatments that
adjust the microbe levels, or 'microbiota,' in the gut may
be developed to help people lose weight without surgery.”
Gut Microbes May Be Behind Weight Loss After Gastric Bypass
To investigate the potential link between gastric bypass
surgery and alterations in gut flora, fattened-up mice were
divided into two groups. The test group underwent gastric bypass
surgery while the control group received sham surgery. After the
sham surgery, the controls were further divided into two groups:
One received a fatty diet; the other a weight-loss diet.
In the test group, the microbial populations quickly changed
following surgery, and the mice lost weight. In the control
group, the gut flora didn’t change much, regardless of their
diet. After the bypass surgery, the test group was found to have
more of certain types of microbes,3
including:
- Gammaproteobacteria, particularly Escherichia
species, which can help prevent inflammation and maintain
intestinal health, although some species of Escherichia
are pathogenic
- Akkermansia bacteria, which can feed on mucus
found in your intestines
According to the featured article:4
“Next, the researchers transferred intestinal
contents from each of the groups into other mice, which
lacked their own intestinal bacteria. The animals that
received material from the bypass mice rapidly lost weight;
stool from mice that had the sham operations had no effect.”
More Research Shows Your Gut Bacteria Impacts Your Weight
Previous research has also shown that lean people tend to
have higher amounts of various healthy bacteria compared to
obese people. For example, one 2011 study5
found that daily intake of a specific form of lactic acid
bacteria could help prevent obesity and reduce low-level
inflammation.
In this study, rats given the bacterium while in utero
through adulthood put on significantly less weight than the
control group, even though both groups of rats ate a similar
high-calorie diet. They also had lower levels of minor
inflammation, which has been associated with obesity.
Similarly, gut bacteria have also been shown to impact weight
in human babies. One study6
found babies with high numbers of bifidobacteria and low numbers
of Staphylococcus aureus -- which may cause low-grade
inflammation in your body, contributing to obesity -- appeared
to be protected from excess weight gain.
This may be one reason why breast-fed babies have a lower
risk of obesity, as bifidobacteria flourish in the gut of
breast-fed babies. Probiotics also appear beneficial in helping
women lose weight after
childbirth when taken from the first trimester through
breastfeeding.
Two other studies found that obese individuals had about 20
percent more of a family of bacteria known as firmicutes, and
almost 90 percent less of a bacteria called bacteroidetes than
lean people. Firmicutes help your body to extract calories from
complex sugars and deposit those calories in fat. When these
microbes were transplanted into normal-weight mice, those mice
started to gain twice as much fat. This is one explanation for
how the microflora in your gut may affect your weight.
Yet another study from 20107
showed that obese people were able to reduce their abdominal fat
by nearly five percent, and their subcutaneous fat by over three
percent, just by drinking a probiotic-rich fermented milk
beverage for 12 weeks. Given that the control group experienced
no significant fat reductions at all during the study period,
this is one more gold star for probiotics.
Probiotics have also been found to benefit
metabolic syndrome, which often goes hand-in-hand with
obesity. This makes sense since both are caused by a diet high
in sugars, which leads to insulin resistance, fuels the growth
of unhealthy bacteria, and packs on excess weight.
Diet and Environmental Factors Affect Your Gut Flora
I have long stated that it's generally a wise choice to
"reseed" your body with good bacteria from time to time by
taking a high-quality probiotic supplement or eating
non-pasteurized, traditionally fermented foods such as:
One of the reasons why fermented foods are so beneficial is
because they contain lactic acid bacteria, which of course has
health benefits over and beyond any weight-loss benefits, as
well as a wide variety of other beneficial bacteria. Ideally,
you want to eat a variety of fermented foods to maximize the
variety of bacteria. But eating fermented foods may not be
enough if the rest of your diet is really poor. Your gut
bacteria are an active and integrated part of your body, and as
such are vulnerable to your lifestyle. If you eat a lot of
processed foods, for instance, your gut bacteria are going to be
compromised because processed foods in general will destroy
healthy microflora and feed bad bacteria and yeast. Your gut
bacteria are also very sensitive to:
- Antibiotics
- Chlorinated water
- Antibacterial soap
- Agricultural chemicals
- Pollution
The Hidden Health Hazards of Antibiotics in Meat
A related news story highlights one hidden source of
antibiotics that can have a significant and long-term impact on
your gut flora and overall health. Writing for the New York
Times,8
David A. Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) from 1990 to 1997, warns that
antibiotic-resistant pathogens in livestock are on the rise as a
result of the fact that, in the US, antibiotics are routinely
fed to livestock not only to fight infection, but to promote
unhealthy (though profitable) weight gain.
“While the F.D.A. can see what kinds of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria are coming out of livestock
facilities, the agency doesn’t know enough about the
antibiotics that are being fed to these animals,” he
writes. “This is a major public health problem, because
giving healthy livestock these drugs breeds superbugs that
can infect people. We need to know more about the use of
antibiotics in the production of our meat and poultry. The
results could be a matter of life and death. ... It may
sound counterintuitive, but feeding antibiotics to livestock
at low levels may do the most harm.
When he accepted the Nobel Prize in 1945 for his
discovery of penicillin, Alexander Fleming warned that
'there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily
underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to nonlethal
quantities of the drug make them resistant.' He probably
could not have imagined that, one day, we would be doing
this to billions of animals in factory-like facilities.”
The link between antibiotic use in livestock and
antibiotic-resistant disease is so clear that the use of
antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed has been banned
in Europe since 2006.9
In sharp contrast, according to the first-ever report by the FDA10
on the topic, confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) used a
whopping 29 million pounds of antibiotics in 2009, and
according to Kessler, that number had further risen to nearly 30
million pounds in 2011, which represents about 80 percent of all
reported antibiotic sales that year.
What’s more, on December 22, 2011, the FDA quietly posted a
notice in the Federal Register11
that it was effectively reneging on its plan to reduce the use
of antibiotics in agricultural animal feed – a plan it has been
touting since 1977.
Instead, the agency decided it will continue to allow
livestock producers to use the drugs in feed unabated. Only one
class of antibiotics, cephalosporin, has been restricted from
use in livestock.12
This class of antibiotics, which are regularly prescribed to
humans, are implicated in the development and spread of
drug-resistant bacteria among humans that work with, and/or eat,
the animals. As of April 5, 2012, the antibiotics are no longer
be allowed for use in preventing diseases in livestock,
although they are still allowed for treatment of illness in
livestock.
The Food and Drug Industries Don’t Want You to Know the Facts
As stated by Kessler, we have more than enough evidence that
using antibiotics as growth promoters is threatening human
health. Yet the drug and food industries are doing everything
they can to block proposed legislation that would limit this
practice, and both the FDA and the Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions aid and abet them. For example,
the Committee took no action on a proposal from Senators Kirsten
E. Gillibrand (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), which would
require the FDA to report data on agricultural antibiotics that
it already collects but does not disclose. According to Kessler:
“'In the House, Representatives Henry A. Waxman of
California and Louise M. Slaughter of New York, also
Democrats, have introduced a more comprehensive measure. It
would not only authorize the FDA to collect more detailed
data from drug companies, but would also require food
producers to disclose how often they fed antibiotics to
animals at low levels to make them grow faster and to offset
poor conditions.
This information would be particularly valuable to
the F.D.A., which asked drugmakers last April to voluntarily
stop selling antibiotics for these purposes. The agency has
said it would mandate such action if those practices
persisted, but it has no data to determine whether the
voluntary policy is working. The House bill would remedy
this situation, though there are no Republican sponsors.'
...Lawmakers must let the public know how the drugs they
need to stay well are being used to produce cheaper meat.”
How to Avoid Hidden Antibiotics in Your Food
This is one of the many reasons why I always recommend buying
your meat, whether beef or poultry, from a local organic farmer
rather than your local supermarket. The only way to avoid this
hidden source of antibiotics is to make sure you’re only buying
organic, grass-fed, free-range meats and organic
pasture-raised chickens, as non-medical use of antibiotics is
not permitted in organic farming.
If you live in an urban area, there are increasing numbers of
community-supported agriculture programs available that
offer access to healthy, locally grown foods even if you live in
the heart of the city. Being able to find high-quality meat is
such an important issue for me personally that I've made
connections with sources I know provide high-quality organic
grass-fed beef and bison, free-range chicken and ostrich, all of
which you can find in my
online store. The farms our supplier uses have three USDA
inspectors on hand that regularly inspect the packaging
facility. Additionally, all of the cattle are grass-fed on open
pastures, and E. coli 0157 testing is performed daily. You can
eliminate the shipping charges though if you find a trusted
farmer right in your area.
The
Weston Price Foundation has chapters all over the world and
many of them are connected with buying clubs in which you can
easily purchase these types of foods locally. Another resource
you can try is Local
Harvest, which you can use to find farmers' markets, family
farms, and other sources of safe, sustainably grown food in your
area.
For Optimal Health, Tend to Your Gut
The micro-organisms living in your digestive tract form a
very important "inner ecosystem" that influences countless
aspects of health, including your weight. More specifically, the
type and quantity of organisms in your gut interact with your
body in ways that can either prevent or encourage the
development of many diseases, including
heart disease and
diabetes, and may help dictate the ease with which you’re
able to shed unwanted pounds.
Since virtually all of us are exposed to factors that destroy
beneficial bacteria in the gut, such as antibiotics (whether you
take them for an illness or get them from contaminated animal
products), chlorinated water, antibacterial soap, agricultural
chemicals and pollution, ensuring your gut bacteria remain
balanced should be considered an ongoing process.
Cultured foods like raw milk yogurt and kefir, some cheeses,
and fermented vegetables are good sources of natural, healthy
bacteria. So my strong recommendation would be to make cultured
or fermented foods a regular part of your diet; this can be your
primary strategy to optimize your body's good bacteria. If you
do not eat fermented foods frequently, taking a high-quality
probiotic supplement is definitely a wise move. In fact, this is
one of the few supplements recommended for everyone. A probiotic
supplement can be incredibly useful to help maintain a
well-functioning digestive system when you stray from your
healthy diet and consume excess grains or sugar, or if you have
to take antibiotics.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.