Can Gut Microbes Help Me Manage My Weight?
Microbes in the gut feed on the food we eat, and in addition to providing a host of health-boosting services, they can help prevent obesity.
Microbes live all over your body, and trillions of them live in your gut. Although they are responsible for the malodorous gas we all love to hate, gut microbes are to be encouraged—they help the body extract nutrients from food, produce essential vitamins, calm an overactive immune system, reduce inflammation, and even bolster your defenses against less helpful, disease-causing organisms.
Researchers have recently discovered that gut microbes also play a big part in how quickly you gain weight. They found that people who are obese or who eat lots of highly processed food carry more kinds of superpowered, food-digesting bacteria. These microbes seem to help the body suck more energy than normal from each slice of cake, making it easier for you to gain weight.
Whether these fat-promoting bugs cause obesity or they proliferate as a result of being overweight or eating refined foods is an unanswered question; it is likely that both are partly true. What we do know, though, is that by feeding your gut more vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, these obesity-associated bugs will dwindle, helping your weight management efforts.
Keeping your gut microbes happy boosts your general health and makes weight management easier. Eating plenty of fiber is especially important—it’s the microbes’ favorite food. When bacteria in the colon ferment fiber to extract energy, a by-product of the process helps you absorb beneficial minerals, including calcium and iron. The bugs also secrete vitamin K, which helps the blood clot.
Probiotic foods, which contain live “helpful” bacteria, can add to a depleted microbe army, if the dosage is high enough. However, if you are well, probiotics are of little use—taking them is like trying to grow corn in a rainforest!
Take antibiotics only when you have to; they don’t discriminate between friendly or enemy bacteria, so may wipe out the dutiful denizens of your gut.
n Double-tap image to read the labels
improve your gut habitat
Research has shown that a diet of highly processed foods is associated with gut microbes that make you prone to gain weight. Eating mainly unrefined, plant-based foods means fewer obesity-associated bacteria.
probiotic pros
- Lactobacillus rhamnosus may reduce allergies and helps weight loss.
- Lactococcus lactis may help protect against and treat diarrhea.
- Lactobacillus plantarum may reduce symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
- Bifidobacterium bifidum and Lactobacillus acidophilus may help lower cholesterol.
The entirety of the gut—from gullet to anus—is coated with a brainlike mesh of nerves that functions much like the gray matter in our skull. This second “brain” orchestrates the digestive process, and, incredibly, it could do the job even if it were completely detached from our brain. Our belly really does have a mind of its own.