Struggling To Lose Weight? Your Gut Feeling May Be Wrong

The American lifestyle of fast food, chips, frozen dinners and all sorts of processed foods has resulted in an epidemic of obesity. Most of the stuff we consume are full of sugars and harmful trans fat. People have opted for the convenience of curbside pick-up over a home cooked meal choosing to overlook the damage such a lifestyle is doing to their health.

There is an interesting twist to this, however. Researchers are now looking into the possibility that weight gain may be influenced by factors other than diet or level of physical activity. There is a new and interesting theory that being prone to gaining weight is dependent on the balance of bacteria in your gut.

The moment you came out of your mother's womb, trillions of bacteria invaded your digestive system. Within two years' time, this community was practically complete and busily doing various functions such as digestion and the production of vitamins. The question you may be asking now is how these microscopic masses are able to determine whether you are prone to weight gain or not.

There are two types of bacteria present in your intestines--bacteroidetes and firmicutes. They perform a number of functions and one of them is to extract calories from the food you eat. Researchers who are trying to discover why some people easily gain weight while others don't, are very interested in exploring this angle.

In recent studies conducted on mice and humans, it was found that those with more firmicutes in their gut extracted significantly more calories from the same quantity of food than those with more bacteroidetes. In other words, if two people who basically weigh the same eat the same amount of food, the one who has more firmicutes in his or her intestines would absorb more calories and therefore would have the bigger tendency to put on weight.

In one study, a dozen obese people were given a predetermined diet to follow and researchers tracked their progress for a year. Prior to the diet, their gut bacteria were mostly firmicutes. However, as time progressed and they began to lose weight, scientists noticed that the balance of gut bacteria tipped in favor of bacteroidetes, much like that of lean people. This and other similar studies are causing researchers to look into other non-traditional theories to explain why there are people who easily gain weight.

This new direction has breathed new life to weight loss research.
It certainly raises the hopes of people who have been trying to find a solution to their weight problem for years. If the key to weight loss is in creating a favorable balance of intestinal bacteria, then we would have to undo most of what we know about diet and even exercise for that matter. However, as we wait for the final verdict on this matter, it is still best to rely on the ole reliable combination of a healthy diet and regular exercise.

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