Dieting and exercise are the two main contributors to weight loss. A study published in a later NYT article stated that one must perform 80 minutes of moderate activity, such as walking, or 35 minutes of vigorous activity, such as running to stay healthy. This is extremely important because with a hearty diet and the right amount of exercise, one can achieve and maintain a healthy body. My health and the health of others is what is most important, above all.
1
This adds to the knowledge that if you receive a fecal transplant from an overweight person, you will gain weight. It also ties in with the research that an excess of the bacteroides shows up in folks with multiple sclerosis, but with a diet high in fiber one can favor more beneficial bacteria. There was also a recent study that showed a high count of prevotella decreased MS symptoms. Since there are more bacteria cells in and on us than there are of us, it´s no wonder that they have such a huge effect on our health.
1
Obviously, like many others I'm sure, I'd like to know where I can get me some Prevotella!
9
Another gut wrenching story about controlling body weight.
The reality always remains the same. For virtually everyone but the statistical 'outliers" who comprise .9% of the population, just eat fewer calories, no more than 2000 a day under the best of circumstances, and your weight will be "controlled." For anyone but athletes, 2000 cals is the upper limit.
2
And that has what, exactly, to do with new discoveries about our microbiome? That is ultimately what the article was about, if you read it...
3
@KB:
This is the least successful approach, demonstrated over and over again throughout a century of obesity research. Metabolic rate, hunger/satiety, and fat storage are all variable and interdependent. Calorie restriction produces short-term weight loss, but much of the weight lost will be muscle, and the body increases hunger and decreases metabolic rate to compensate in the longer term.
I suggest a read of Gary Taubes.
2
How come these studies don't ever tell us how the populations compare in sugar consumption?
1
(Part 2)
Just off the top of my head:
1. Many fewer babies are breastfed now compared with the 1940s.
2. Many more babies are born by Caesarian section, which deprives them of the exposure to the flora of the mother's birth canal, which has been proven to affect the development of the babies' own intestinal flora.
3. Babies receive vastly more vaccines at a very early age while their immune systems (which interact with gut flora) are still developing.
4. There has been an exponential increase in the application of pesticides and herbicides to our food crops, and traces of these biocides routinely show up in our food supply.
5. Chlorination of municipal water systems has become widespread, causing me to wonder what effect the chronic ingestion of small amounts of chlorine has on our gut bacteria.
6. Widespread (and often improper and/or unnecessary) use of antibiotics have repeatedly been shown to decimate the population of gut flora and distort the balance of the repopulated microbiome.
7. In accordance with the "hygiene hypothesis", the increasingly "clean" environments and lack of exposure to soil, animals, etc., that characterize modern childhood, is known to affect the immune system and may well affect the development of gut bacteria.
8. While mandatory milk pasteurization is now universal in the U.S., the first statewide pasteurization laws were enacted in 1947, thus setting the stage for widespread change in the balance of gut flora in huge swathes of the population.
17
Part 1)
In answer to M. Anderson's question about what has changed since the 1940's -- many, many things have changed since the 1940s. It goes without saying that many of the factors mentioned below have improved or saved the lives of millions of people. I am not suggesting they be abandoned, but I have long wished that their possible unintended consequences could be studied in an impartial, non-politicized way. (While I am sure I could think of more, I’ve already exceeded the character limit for comments and must break this comment into two parts. ) See part 2 below.
8
Everyone with heartburn about the conclusions of this brief, poorly written piece should simply download the original study and draw their own conclusions.
2
Gut bacteria may well play a role in weight regulation -- but the long-term standing wisdom on weight loss is that any serious sustained effort allows the loss of 10-20 lbs for almost all overweight persons. These are the "easy pounds". Losing those easy pounds will make you feel better and and may improve your overall health somewhat.
The real problem is how to lose the extra 60-100 pounds that many people need to lose, the seriously obese.
Medical science is still struggling to discover the cause of widespread obesity (as opposed to simple overweight -- caused in many cases by affluence).
I doubt that this is it though -- but it may be in the right direction.
2
Gut bacteria are receiving more attention from GI specialists. When my (unwanted) weight loss and various GI symptoms could not be diagnosed, I asked for a breath test to rule out SIBO, small intestine bacterial overgrowth. It came back positive and a very expensive very strong antibiotic, Xifaxan, was prescribed. Doing some research, I found that SIBO can be caused by low stomach acid. (Many people are mistakenly prescribed antacids.). I started taking a small amount of diluted apple cider vinegar after meals twice daily. To my surprise, the GI symptoms resolved.
9
For clarification: the antibiotic was never taken, and the apple cider vinegar is the unfiltered kind (look for brown color and solids settled on the bottom).
6
Thank you, that is fascinating.
Gut bacteria may have a big role how we metabolize what we eat. There maybe other factors such as the environment we live in, the viruses we are exposed to, etc. also play varying roles. Then the genomic constitution we have been made of.
2
The take home message is that the type of bacteria that predominate in the gut has a direct relationship on how successful a weight loss diet will be - all other things being equal.
What is implied is that by characterizing the predominating bacteria in the gut it will be possible to tailor a weight loss diet.
It's understandable that many people will consider this another fad but one needs to consider that the entire gastrointestinal tract is colonized by bacteria that directly interface between the food that enters our mouth and what ultimately enters our metabolism.
3
There are thousands of species of gut bacteria, so this finding is a first stab in the dark. We literally don't know how these parasitic systems work in the human body.
2
Eat less and exercise more.
That will cause weight loss and preserve or increase muscle mass.
2
You are right!!! There's no magic bullet.
2
@lynn godmilow:
This is the least successful long term approach, demonstrated over and over again throughout a century of obesity research. I recommend a read of Gary Taubes.
1
I reread this article several times and couldn't make sense of it. Is the conclusion that to lose weight, it is best to be on a high-fiber diet *and* to have a high Prevotella ratio in the gut? In particular, the 3rd paragraph is very confusing and suggests to a casual reader that the study found no significant difference anywhere.
12
The conclusion is that your gut microbiome is vital to how we process foods, and which bacteria are prevalent in your gut could determine the success of a particular diet. The third paragraph exampled this, (though I agree it's worded quite confusingly!): the group of people who had more of the "P" bacteria processed the new diet and lost more weight than those who had more of the "B" bacteria; but then on a regular diet, both "P" and "B" groups lost statistically the same amount of weight. This just shows that the "P" bacteria interacted with the specific diet and led to one result, but then interacted with a different diet and had the same result as the "B" bacteria.
10
Thank you, Chris. Exactly. What scientists call "interaction" between one factor and another factor in an experiment. It's not just the kind of bacteria. It's the kind of bacteria combined with the kind of food. As usual, the journalist either didn't understand the published article or has tried so hard to simplify the findings for the average reader that the average reader cannot make head or tail of them. And the headline writer is joining in to misrepresent the science. The search for a single, magic key that explains everything is unproductive in science, but it sure earns clicks in an on-line newspaper.
3
Mal, you are right. Statistically insignifiant means exactly that: the difference between the two groups was insufficient to suggest any difference.
The real confusion is why the NYT would bother printing this.
4
62 overweight people . How overweight were they? What were their heights, weights, gender, ages? What exactly IS the average Danish diet anyway? What was their average activity level? 62 " overweight people" is not much of a big study, this article was interesting but not substantial.
3
A single study is rarely, if ever, substantial. Replication and generalization are both important - this is a start - shouldn't be ignored, shouldn't be taken as gospel.
Every time a read one of these clever "We have a new angle on weight loss...." the color of your plate, how many times you chew, carbs, meat, sugar etc. I have one reply...
Exercise.
Diets are silly.
5
It's a myth that exercise alone will lead to weight loss. For most people, it requires diet and exercise combined, and even then - most weight loss is short term, not long term.
12
I lost 130 lbs with a combination of diet and exercise. It takes both.
3
Diet is far more important than exercise. You can't exercise your way out of a bad diet. It's easier to not eat the calories in the first place.
9
So in the future will these bacteria be the new probiotics instead of acidophilus?
3
Sure it is! And so is my no-good brother-in-law.....
2
Why is there a contradictory conclusion from the study? It doesn't show at all that gut bacteria has any effect on weight loss. This is the NYT???
2
What does the last paragraph mean? Get what done?
3
It’s sickening, in more ways than one, that greedy Western corporations are destroying the traditional diets and health of people around the globe, causing obesity.
Hopefully, grass root volunteer organizations can get philanthropic funding to at least make a change in this destructive trend through education.
So much Western food is processed and low fiber, leading to the destruction of one’s healthy gut microbiome; thus, promoting disease.
We all need to move away from the Standard American Diet (SAD) in order to put the breaks on obesity and improve our health.
The study below analyzed the gut microbiome, and associated health benefits, of the Hadza people in Africa.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is The Secret To A Healthier Microbiome Hidden In The Hadza Diet?
August 24, 20176:11 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/24/545631521/is-the-sec...
"The trend was clear: The further away people's diets are from a Western diet, the greater the variety of microbes they tend to have in their guts. And that includes bacteria that are missing from American guts...
...In a way, the Western diet — low in fiber and high in refined sugars — is basically wiping out species of bacteria from our intestines.”
4
Yes, there must be a paragraph or something explaining how to improve your gut bacteria. If you want to know a secret, look up whole food plant-based diet. Healthy food provides healthy bacteria.
3
One of the authors works for a pharmaceutical company (Gelesis, Boston). That should tell you enough about the value of this study.
6
It should lead you to reserve judgment until the study is duplicated and the data researched further. But it does not necessarily mean that the results are tainted and that the conclusions must be rejected out of hand.
2
@sharonq: In a perfect world, you'd be correct. In the real world in the realm of biotech and venture capital and privately funded "research" and whippersnapper poorly trained statistics-incompetent conflict-of-interest-blind biomedical types, "reader" has it nailed (assuming her/his comment was intended to disparage the interest-conflicted author and colleagues).
There are powerful incentives, psychological and financial, for these "scientists" to behave unethically, as here. An intrinsic naïveté about human nature and ignorance of the scientific method and process on the part of the lay public leads many to miss ethics breaches and bad science - especially when there is a bogus claim that some finding could be used to treat disease. And, of course, there are the occasional great studies based on accumulated solid science that actually do become relevant to treating disease. They don't look anything like this travesty, however.
Bogus claims about relevance to human disease should not compensate for all the stuff that is absolutely wrong about these stupid harmful studies - the COI, the inappropriate hype and intentional deception, the miserable "science", the pathetically incompetent statistical analyses. But...rest assured they don't need your cover, biotech and pharma have plenty of resources to keep on screwing us all.
From what I read here, this was just a correlation and it's not clear that the particular bacterial ratios are the cause of the effect. Knowing the actual cause would be essential for any practical intervention.
4
"...a statistically insignificant difference...'
Hypothesis does not hold up. What's the news?
3
Only part of the results were statistically insignificant. For subjects eating a high fiber diet, the ratio of Prevotella:Bacteroides bacteria led to statistically significant differences in weight loss.
The news is this - the effectiveness of a high fiber diet depends upon the type of bacteria living in your gut. If you have lots of Prevotella bacteria, then you will lose more weight on a high-fiber diet than someone who has relatively few Prevotella bacteria. If, however, you eat a lower-fiber diet, then it doesn't really matter whether you have lots of Prevotella or just a few.
This research is interesting because it helps to explain why some people lose weight easily on a high fiber diet, while other people do not.
1
Here is my re-write attempt:
"Participants on the high-fiber diet lost the most weight overall, but the ratio of Prevotella to Bacteroides in a participants' gut appeared to influence the weight loss results among the two diet groups. On the high-fiber diet, participants with a high Prevotella to Bacteroides ratio lost ten pounds compared with only seven and a half pounds for those with a low ratio. On the regular diet, however, participants with a low Prevotella to Bacteroides ratio lost relatively more weight than those with a high ratio, although the difference was statistically insignificant."
The paragraph is followed by what seems to be a non-sequitur: 'The lead author, Mads F. Hjorth, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen, said that losing fat, and not muscle mass, is what is most meaningful to improved health.'
Huh? And how do participants or readers know how to achieve the former and not the latter?
34
NYT, PLEASE could you be more selective when editing the comment section on articles about diet, obesity studies, nutrition, etc. For years now I see the same series of comments: "it's calories in, calories out! Fatties need to put down their forks!" "It's all the fault of carbs!" "People need to exercise more! Fatties, just walk around the block!" "It's not the fault of the obese, Big Ag has poisoned our food!" And commenters sharing the secret of their success: "I eat oatmeal for breakfast every day! I stop eating when I'm finished! I walk twice a week! I am 72 and 130 pounds! Just do what I do!" Please, just stop the comments, they don't advance the discussion.
27
Lisa, no one is forcing you to read the comments. Perhaps you will be happy with just reading the article and leave the comments section to us obsessives.
10
I agree 100%.
2
If your Prevotella ratio is low you will loose less than if it is high.
You will loose more on the low fat high fiber diet.
So he is a scientist! Not an English major.
2
Really, NYT... you're going to let the reporter and your editors get away with a sentence that includes the following... "You can’t go and get this done now..." Unfortunately, "this" is nowhere defined in the article. One could perhaps infer a gut transplant, an implant that changes the microbiome, eating more fiber and nuts, probiotics, etc. This article could use some more reporting and significantly better editing.
27
I'm not a statistician but I've had a couple of classes. I really wonder if the 1-1/2 pound difference is really statistically "insignificant" as the author suggests. I wonder if the author understands what "statistical significance" means. I kinda suspect that he does not. a 1-1/2 pound difference might not be medically significant but I suspect that it's statistically significant.
1
Take a look at the linked article. The 1.5# difference had a p value of 0.25, and the authors take p<0.05 to define significance - so, by definition, the change is not statistically significant. (A discussion of whether p values are the best marker of significance is beyond the scope of this comment...) The reason for this is because each group ended up only have about 15 subjects (since 62 has to be split 4 ways: the two different diets, and the two different ratios of bacteria). The sample size is just too small for the 1.5# difference to be meaningful.
3
If you are interested in this small-sample research, read the cited article. The NYT article as of 5:30EST 9-16, misrepresents the results, even after revision of the garbled part that confused Lauren T and all of us who read and write good English.
("The Healthy Microbiome" in Genome Medicine from 2016 by Lloyd-Price et al. pointed out that Prevotella is one of 5 genera, as reclassified from the original Bacteroides. Thus, the ratio in the study must be the percentage of Prevotella among "Bacteroides." Scientists need to keep up with the state-of-the-art! Perhaps that is too much to ask from "science writers.")
10
This comments section represents a good cross section of the attitudes toward obesity in our society. Some people swear by specific dietary changes (lactose free, veggies, specific probiotic bacteria, etc.), others promote exercise, and many blame overeating. If it were truly that easy, we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic. In fact, this divergence of opinions does illustrate that different things work for different people, and that some people have more difficulty than others in dealing with their weight. I welcome every new research study that helps shed light on this difficult issue. We can hope that eventually we'll have a real understanding of the issue of obesity, and that then we can stop blaming each other.
27
"...many blame overeating." I think if you examine the actual (not reported) diets of obese and overweight people you will see that almost all of them consume at least enough calories to maintain their excess weight given their respective levels of exercise. There have always been fat people, but these days there are more fat than average or ideal weight people, and of those fat people more are obese and morbidly obese than ever before. This cannot be a question merely of factors outside their control.
4
When I go to pulmonary rehab at a local hospital 3 times weekly (have been doing this now for 11 years), I often see health care workers arriving for work. While it's hardly a scientific study, I can tell you that nearly every obese person I see (not heavy, but obese), is walking in carrying a "super-sized" cup of soda. I think there is a significant correlation here.
4
Good points, Marjorie. Remember Susan Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor?" One of her points was that whenever there are many different explanations for some disease, it is likely that none of them is the true etiology. As soon as the true cause is discovered, all the "alternative" theories retreat to the loony fringe.
I wonder what the quick way to increase prevotella is. I'll believe it when I try it and see.
3
As an aside, absolutely supplement with Calcium Citrate through the day, and take Vitamin D3. You'd be surprised how just eating calcium-rich foods won't translate into retained bone support:
Women tend to learn this the hard way, thinking cheese, yogurt, salmon, almonds, green leafy veggies, etc. supply sufficient bone health. They don't.
2
I disagree with the lead author’s statement that there has been "little in the way of practical results.” There are actually a LOT of practical results. But most people don’t want to hear the message based on these results.
For example: "two enterotypes [were found to be] associated with diet; the enterotype dominated by Bacteroides is adapted to diets high in protein and animal fats, while the Prevotella enterotype is associated with carbohydrate metabolism and a vegetarian diet. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4245565/
And I’ve read that a change in diet can change the gut bacterial populations; eating a Whole Foods Plant Based diet changes the ratio in the direction noted in the quote above.
Note that this article reports that the "ratio of two gut bacteria, Prevotella and Bacteroides” were analyzed — and those with a higher ratio of Prevotella to Bacteroides lost more weight on the low-fat diet high in fiber, fruits, vegetables and whole grains. I wonder what would have happened had this group been fed a Whole Foods Plant Based diet only? Both in terms of weight loss and in their bacterial ratio. I suspect a greater weight loss, and perhaps an even greater change in their gut bacterial ratio.
8
The brilliant John Ioannidis wrote "Why Most Published Research Findings are False" in 2005 (http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.00.... This is a masterpiece. The fraction of findings that are false is even higher today, as many of the problems cited by Ioannidis are already much more prevalent or more severe now.
The overwhelming majority of "biome" results will be shown to be bogus. It is extremely unlikely that most of the rest will be amenable to reduction to practice; i.e., it will be "useless" to human health.
4
Here we go with the Low-Fat thing again. It's Big Sugar that got the nutritionists into the highly misguided fight against dietary fats and even the pro-Probiotic types still can't let go it.
I'd like to amend Pollan's decree to
"Eat less less processed food. Not too much. Mostly plants but TAKE IT EASY ON GRAINS."
13
Eat food, mostly plants. Not too much. That is excellent advice. People like Pollan and countless others, including within the big bad USDA, have for decades been telling people to eat less processed foods, a wide variety of foods, and lots of fruits and vegetables. All the bases are covered by that advice, and have been for some time. Whole grains are not the enemy. In fact, whole grains have many beneficial components, including non-starch polysaccharides. AND, they are not high calorie-dense. The vast majority of those who get fat, are not eating a diet where whole grains feature prominently. I'll close this comment with a question for you: When was the last time you saw an advertisement for rice, wheat, corn, oats, or any other grain?
6
@childofsol:
By "non starch polysaccharides", do you mean fiber? Sure, there's fiber in there, but whole grains are not the only source of fiber.
Yep, lots of people do quite well with whole grains in the diet, and whole grains are better than refined grains. But some of us just don't do well with whole grains, through blood sugar issues (whole grains spike blood sugar and insulin) or through digestive troubles. Since humans ate few or no grains for ~95% of our existence as a species, we know that there is nothing _essential_ about grains.
I'll close this comment with a question for you: When was the last time you saw an advertisement for "whole grain" cereal, bread, pasta, cookies, crackers, etc?
2
Here's one answer to the question that was asked: "I've never seen an ad for a grain."
I can think of an ad for a minimally-processed whole grain product, Quaker rolled oats. Ads for whole wheat bread might be out there as well, but I'm not familiar with them.
We get that you personally have an issue with grains. Some people are allergic to nuts, which has nothing to do with the health value of nuts or whether good health can be achieved without consuming them. The issue at hand isn't your diet, nor whether humans can survive without one or more major food categories; we know they can. Many people eat no meat, for example.
Which parts of human evolution deserve our consideration? How much weight should we attach to information about the diet, health or longevity of our very distant ancestors compared with what we know about the health and the diets of billions of humans who came after them? Personally, I prefer evidence over speculation and anecdote.
It is easy to get caught up in the details, and search for villains and magic elixirs. The overwhelming evidence is in favor of the consumption of whole plant foods, including whole grains. There are billions of real people consuming grains and enjoying good health, far outnumbering people like you.
Grains directly provide about half the world's calories. Animals require vast quantities of water and feed to survive. Advocating for higher intake of animal products is harmful to those without our options.
2
This particular physician-scientist sees that snake oil salespeople, now with bigger, badder more complex tools, are thriving in biomedical research - as demonstrated here. Many perform and promote research using strategies that align with "key opinion leaders" and work hard to get press - even if in these incredibly low "impact factor" journals like the International Journal of Obesity - in order to gain and maintain funding. This comes at enormous costs, both to society as a whole and especially to careful, independent innovative basic research, and to these researchers who are losing their jobs as funding shifts to the crafty fools and their followers.
A tiny fraction of obese individuals in this country have a responsible genetic mechanism. We all recognize them based on body habitus, early onset or onset at menses, obvious endocrine disorders, co-morbidities, etc. The other 100 million+ are obese not because of their "micro biome" but because they are victims of big agri and big food corporate greed, misguided sociology that celebrates "fat acceptance" in the face of obvious negative health ramifications, and absolutely terrible science performed by people who have everything to gain by providing "evidence" that individuals, corporations, governments, can be off the hook re obesity. This is shameful.
19
Great comment.
2
My gut reaction was: "I cannot make head or tail of this!"
52
Fruits veggies and lots of yogurt along with some multigrain toast and the occasional chicken sausage. Sounds delicious!
9
Sounds soft and mushy.
Eat it all - take a walk after.
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. - Michael Pollan
41
I love his comment. Which I modified slightly to:
Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Then I added:
Drink water. Exercise. Sleep enough. Laugh a lot.
Where "real" food means unprocessed foods -- foods your great grandmother might recognize, or make in her kitchen.
6
@Dr. J:
Foods that our great-grandmothers made in their kitchens included meat, fish, eggs, and full-fat dairy. All nutrient-dense, unprocessed foods.
10
And if you the right class of bacteria your will be slim and muscular.
The whole business of studying the various biomes will amount to one of the most important areas of research in medical history. Much is already being discovered about the influence of the biome, including the psychological and even moral makeup of the biomes' shost, us. I suspect much that is currently credited to our "subconscious' will turn out to be bubbling up from our biomes. With trillions of microbes working in amazing concert (for good or for ill) in our bodies, the biome clearly has some form of "intelligence." Anything as complex and immense as a biome just might have some alien variation of consciousness, too.
Excuse me, I have to take a call from my biome.
14
Thank you, Lauren. I thought it was just my "brain receptors." I'm 82.
2
A morbidly obese person can eat same exact diet as skinny person but skinny person will lose more weight with same amt of energy expenditure. Read the obesity journals before you state what you think is obvious. Peoples metabolisms, bodily functions, vary. And because of this variation it isnt just a matter of ins and outs. Would be nice if more research done on fat and very fat instead of trying to extrapolate from studies on mostly avg sized males.
22
It is a matter of ins and outs. Fuel your body for what it needs, not what you want to eat.
Nobody at the gas pump tries to force a Suburban's worth of gas into a Prius. It doesn't need it and can't take it without making a mess.
Pictures of crowds taken in the 1940s show people vastly slimmer than today. Every latest explanation of why Americans are so fat ignores this fact. So what has changed?
35
I think what has changed are the government subsidies for carbohydrate- and fat-rich foods, as well as the mechanization of food processing which enables mass marketing of, say, corn chips.
4
Different foods + Different environments = Different bugs.
This is not your Grandma's microbiome
3
@M Anderson:
Many explanations/hypotheses start with exactly this phenomenon -- the obesity epidemic is quite new, dating to around the late 1970s/early 80s. Two leading explanations, not mutually exclusive are that types and qualities of foods changed, and that gut bacteria changed.
5
My new personal trainer at the gym asked what my goals are. That was easy. I want to lose 20 pounds and have two drinks before dinner -- same goals I've had since 1964.
26
A quick google turned up this excellent site, which in turn has links to a few prevotella studies. There are apparently lots of prevotella strains, and all are not benign!
One takeaway however is that a diet heavy in plants is likely to promote more of the good guys in your gut. But we knew that already, didn't we?
In short, no silver bullet here, but keep eating those veggies.
http://www.gutmicrobiotaforhealth.com/en/the-latest-advances-regarding-t...
12
It seems almost every week we read some "potentially revolutionary" new discovery on diet or health but a decade later we never seem to actually benefit. There should be a rule in journalism that every one of these articles must be followed up in 5, 10 and 20 years so we can see what came of it. In almost all cases the answer is nothing. So people are starting to see through these "breakthroughs". Kind of clickbait for the educated.
7
There are many theories on weight loss. I believe in an Occam's Razor explanation. Stop eating so much food! Take your normal portion of anything you eat. Cut it half. Eat half. Throw the other half away (or save for the next meal). You will lose weight.
10
Not everyone who's overweight is overeating. At least five physiological causes have been discovered--metabolism, bacteria, etc. etc. It's important that the public --and doctors!--understand this. Overeating is often blamed for causing diabetes, but few people are aware that the latest research shows that diabetes often causes weight gain.
If you cut your food intake in half, as a commenter recommended, you'll be cutting your nutrition in half. Instead, eat smaller portions, especially of carbs and sugar, making sure you're actually hungry when you eat. Increase liquids and avoid sugared drinks.
9
@Roy Heffner:
Overeating is a symptom and not a root cause. Your advice is the least successful advice, demonstrated over and over again throughout a century of obesity research. Upon prolonged caloric restriction, the body increases hunger and decreases metabolic rate to compensate.
21
(Gradually) learning to enjoy really strenuous physical activity and eating a healthy diet are the real keys to maintaining a healthy weight. If you are already fat, you'll need to suck it up and restrict your calories to burn it off. Everything else falls into place if you can learn to love activity. It changes your biochemistry for the better in countless ways. Articles like this can be interesting but they are distractions from the real issue.
9
"This finding is something that could really be used,” he said. “You can’t go and get this done now, but within a reasonable amount of time it might be a possibility.”
Quote of the day.
3
There are overweight people in Denmark? I thought only the big, bad USA had fat people
2
Sharon, there may be fat people in Europe, but watching recent news footage from the US, I was stunned to see so many enormously fat, obese people at once. It's an epidemic in the US., not in Europe.
30
It would be nice if studies like this also periodically measured blood insulin levels or caloric value of the stool excreted.
In other words, is this diet producing gut flora that actually interfere with the body's ability to absorb calories in the intestine -- therefore leaving more calories to be excreted? Or is it faciliting weight loss by depressing blood sugar levels and therefore insulin levels? Or both?
42
Forget exotic theories. Assuming no underlying disease or unique biochemical condition, weight loss follows eating better foods and exercising.
Information is abundant and clear.
If you are not losing weight, you are the culprit.
10
It sounds so logical but it's not actually true. Study after study has failed to show that exercise leads to weight loss -- if anything exercise is associated with a slight weight gain. Not that exercise isn't beneficial in 1000 ways, but telling fat people that the key to being thin is exercise is probabyl the wrong thing. Diet must be addressed first.
And the other part of this -- "eating better foods" -- is problematic because there really is no consensus yet on how people should modify their diets to lose weight. And in fact there is substantial evidence that different diets work differently for different people. Which, given the complexity and diversity of human physiology, shouldn't surprise anybody.
Anyway, it's true that people who are fat ate too much of the wrong foods. But that is not the same as saying we know how to make them lose that fat. It's just not not simple. Low-carb/ketogenic approaches are going to work for a lot of fat people; that's probably the best intervention out there.
But low carb doesn't work for everybody; that's why it is really important to understand possible impact from the gut flora because it might give us a whole new set of tools to work with.
34
@David Henry:
Agreed with "eating better foods," but we now have many competing definitions of what are or are not "better foods."
2
"If you are not losing weight, you are the culprit."-David Henry
Assuming, of course, that each obese person failing to lose fat weight has perfect knowledge. Now, who has a corporate interest in that not happening...?
6
There have been other studies/articles that point to the same conclusions, altho involving different strains of bacteria. I found when i switched my probiotic supplement to one that contained those bacteria, it helped quite a bit to reduce bloating, and with moderate weight loss. At at this time in my life, age 65, weight loss is almost impossible, so even something small for me was significant. Of course, a good diet is essential, and these wouldn't work if you try to survive on junk food or high carbs. L gasseri and L rhamnosus are the bacteria that were involved in previous studies. There are only a couple of supplements that have them. Acidophilus was shown to cause weight gain.
11
I'm 75, determined to lose my beer belly.
Two 1mile walks per day, no beer, no bread, no refined sugar.
Hard fat is turning to soft fat, soft fat is burning off.
How much weight have I lost? Don't know, because reduced belly protuberance is only objective. I guess I am halfaway home
12
Have some fun, Man!
Weight loss is never impossible at any age, but most of us over 50 appreciate the fact that as the metabolism slows down, it becomes harder.
2
And by the way... what are the chances that those helpful, healthful gut flora have been nuked out of existence in recent decades by pesticides, antibiotics, additives, and god knows what else? Just add fast food, super-size sodas, and all-day snacking and you've got yourself an obesity epidemic.
34
Mark R, your gut flora closely tracks what you eat, in terms of animal products, processed foods, and whole foods plant based. Most folks want to blame some outside force, when really the culprit is much closer to home -- in their own kitchens. Or in the fast food restaurant. Or even in the expensive restaurant. Even whole foods plant based diets are not as varied as what our not so distant ancestors ate -- it has much less variety than does a foraging diet -- and we have much less diversity in our gut bacteria.
3
@Dr. J:
I've got some anthropological news for you. Our ancestors, neither distant nor recent, ate whole foods plant-based diets. They ate whole foods omnivorous diets.
3
A graphic of the results would have been helpful. I am sure there was one in the study that could have been used. Good luck to the scientists. I am sure the pharma corporations will handle this development the way big oil handled fuel cells, i.e. deep-six it.
6
By simply switching from lactose milk to lactose free milk, butter, and from Cow to Goat cheese I stopped, sweating, bloating and feeling tiredness and nausea.
In 2 days with no dieting I lost 1 1/2 inches from my waist; My shorts needed taking in by that much and since then everyone thinks I have been on a diet even though all I have done is get aware about the fact that in time one changes.
I have ALWAYS loved milk, as a child it was a food and drink and my favorite. Sometimes making changes can be a purely good thing and no great effort either. Get more aware and listen to your body!
14
Vlad-Drakal, I recently read that cow's milk has 2 kinds of the milk protein casein, A1 and A2. But human milk, and other mammalian milk -- and even some cow's milk -- has only one, A2. And that it may in fact be the A1 casein protein causing an intolerance in many folks, who incorrectly assume it to be the result of lactose. It could also be the basis of milk intolerance in some children. Fascinating.
6
That is great, but so far no study has confirmed your result. Many foods are singled out as boogey-men even though they can add valuable nutrients to the diet that are not otherwise replaced. Not everyone is lactose intolerant or celiac, so eschewing milk or wheat products on account of anecdotes or fads is not helpful. I'll continue drinking low-fat milk and eating whole wheat products until someone proves they are harmful to me. And no, I am not overweight but do notice a little waist tightening if I have eaten more than I should, like during the holidays.
1
I can see how that makes sense scientifically, however I think there's more to what you should avoid with respect to food choices. There may be some correlation between processed foods and a lack of healthy and abundant gut bacteria, it seems as if it would make sense.
It is getting less and less of a secret how harmful processed foods can be on your general health and well-being. Some foods can even increase your risk for certain kinds of cancers, like genetically modified corn and processed meats. Others can increase your blood pressure and have a toll on heart health. So I decided to think of a list of a few more common and super unhealthy processed foods that you need to avoid at any cost. One thing is clear, some of the most heavily processed foods might have clear negative health effects and should be avoided at all costs.
Source: https://truehealthreport.com/top-10-worst-foods/
3
So, everybody lost weight?
Those on the low fat high fiber fruit veggies whole grains lost weight
Those on the normal diet lost weight
Despite gut variations, everybody lost weight?
So what else was going on?
Maybe that's the real news here!
17
"Despite gut variations, everybody lost weight?"-BLB
Only the "success story" group analysis declared the weight loss to be fat. Lean muscle is your friend. People can still weigh the same as they did 30 years ago but have simply replaced heavy muscle with tubes of fat. MRI cross-sectional views of the obese are truly alarming. Muscle and fat don't look the same and a bathroom scale can't tell the difference.
6
BLB, The research subjects were on a "controlled diet intervention" -- it says so right in the title (click on the link to read it). So yes, maybe if your diet is controlled by someone else, you lose weight. Reminds me of the story of food journals, and people who claimed to eat very little -- or not overeat -- but still gained weight. When actually fed what they wrote down in their journals, they all lost weight.
2
BLB, as I understand it, *any* of these laboratory diets will cause weight loss in people who eat junk food. High carb, low carb (which is I think for most people far more maintainable and superior since it suppresses hunger), it doesn't matter -- people will lose weight once they cut out the junk, e.g., added sugars and refined carbs.
The average American eats 131 pounds of refined sugar a year! A food that didn't even exist for most of our evolutionary history.
You're never going to get fat on a diet of meat, veggies, and any but the very sweetest fruits. Try it. In most human cultures, obesity doesn't appear until refined carbs become a staple.
The real question now isn't why we've gotten fat, it's how best to help people lose the weight they gained, which is a lot harder than not getting fat in the first place.
2
We still know very little about the gut and how it interacts with the rest of the body. We could find out a lot more if we funded more research, say by by taxing supposed diet foods, especially their advertising and marketing. But that would be interfering with the "free" market.
We spend a lot more on publicizing research that links some product to possible weight loss than we do in actually doing research. If we actually found a weight reduction method that worked, other very profitable weight reduction methods would be hurt. Sad.
15
Gotta go with your gut on this one.
93
Oh come on guys... the key to losing weight is consuming fewer calories than you expend. This is not rocket science, it's physics. It's the law.
Is this the NYT or the National Enquirer?
13
I disagree, Garrett.There was a very interesting comment in another weight-related article recently that listed a legitimate medical study where a hospitalized person suffering from C.diff (a very dangerous bacterial infection that can be fatal) was treated with a fecal transplant treatment from an obese person. Patient recovered from the C. diff infection, but in a few months she gained 30 pounds. She had never been overweight before this transplant, so it was not at all about what she ate, there was something different about the introduced gut flora that changed the way her body processed food.
There is definitely something to this research, and I am eager to learn more. I am not overweight, but I find this information fascinating -- this could be a treatment that helps so many people.
43
Obviously, people obey the laws of physics. This article doesn't contradict that. What it shows that the amount of calories absorbed by your intestinal tract varies with the types of bacteria inhabiting your gut. If you consume 2,000 calories/day and 300 of those calories are consumed by your intestinal flora, you will lose more weight than if you consume 2,000 calories/day but your intestinal flora only consume 100 of those calories.
17
Actually Mr. Clay, the idea that body weight is determined by "simple physics" has been one of the things holding back dietary science. It turns out it isn't "simple physics" at all. Fortunately scientific consensus has moved on.
The clearest proof that calories in/calories out is false is when fat people go on an Atkins or "ketogenic" diet (replacing carbohydrates with dietary fat). People really do lose weight -- a lot of weight -- on 3,000-4,000 high-fat diets.
The fatter you are, the faster you lose, and it's not just "water weight" -- it's actual body fat. Put those same people on a 1200 calorie low-fat high-carb diet and they will maintain or even gain weight. It's very counterintuitive, but the findings have been documented in study after study.
The reason is, what governs the storage and shrinkage of fat isn't calories, it's the level of insulin in the blood, and that in turn is determined by blood sugar. Keep blood sugar down, keep insulin down, a fat person will lose weight -- calories become almost irrelevant.
The other problem with simplistic "calories in-exercise=weight" is that one part of the equation isn't measured at all -- nobody precisely measures the calorie content of what people excrete in their stool, and it's nearly impossible to measure the caloric cost of the body's tens of thousands of chemical processes. If you could precisely measure those things, then you probably could apply the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
49
Well, this is clear as mud. What exactly are we supposed to to take away from this article that ends before attempting to explain what this new data means? Really second-rate journalism here. Maybe the implicit theme is there's nothing really interesting or actionable here. Sigh...
90
I'm amazed how some readers (17 recommends !) just don't understand science. Read the study. This is just a summary of the results. And it's very clearly summarized.
8
The take away is, look for more research and probably a drug but too late to help the Baby Boomers and GenXers.
Jeez, Sheepdogz, no need to get all upset. The findings are not clear, and Mr. Bakalar tried to avoid dumbing it down to make it appear that it meant more than it does. That's good journalism, not bad. You're right: there's nothing actionable in this article. That's because the fact-based world does not always supply simple actionable facts in every bite-sized package.
1
It can't start soon enough. I wonder what the national percentage is of overweight Americans. If you know, please enter the results.
1
65.23%
3
But is this really actionable? What should anyone do differently even if they know their particular ratio between gut bacteria? People don't need yet another excuse - along with genes, food corporations and governments - to take responsibility for their health.
https://adventuresinperception.com/testpage1/30-2/
4
Can't wait for all the Prevotella supplements that will be hitting the market next week!!
33
A little more information would have helped the impact of this article. For instance—are these gut bacteria available as food supplements as some already are?
55
"You can't go and get this done now, but within a reasonable amount of time it might be a possibility."
I tried but this paragraph defeated my brain receptors:
"Those on the high-fiber diet with a high Prevotella to Bacteroides ratio lost an average of 10 pounds of body fat, three and a half pounds more that those on the diet with a low ratio. Those on the regular diet with a high Prevotella ratio lost four pounds, compared with five and a half pounds for those with a low Prevotella ratio, a statistically insignificant difference."
I challenge anyone to paraphrase that coherently.
146
Not so hard:
high Prevotella ratio + high fiber diet = weight loss of 10 pounds body fat
low Prevotella ratio + high fiber diet = weight loss of 6.5 pounds
high Prevotella ratio + regular diet = weight loss of 4 pounds
low Prevotella ratio + regular diet = weight loss of 5.5 pounds
18
Paraphrase: Participants in this study who had a high Prevotella gut bacteria to Bacteroides gut bacteria ratio lost an average of 10 pounds of body fat on the high-fiber diet. This was 3 1/2 pounds more weight loss than those with a low Prevotella to Bacteroides ratio on the same diet.
However, on the regular diet, those with a high ratio lost only 4 pounds, whereas those with a low ratio lost 5 1/2 pounds. In this case, however, the difference in weight loss was statistically insignificant.
4
The high Precotella ratio led to significantly greater weight loss for people on the high-fiber diet, but did not lead to greater weight loss for people on the regular diet.
16