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by Robert MacKay, Thursday, December 27, 2012 | Categories: Obesity

I have come across an interesting study conducted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University that has demonstrated in a trial on mice how a particular bacterium isolated from an obese human’s intestines can induce obesity and insulin resistance in mice who are fed a high fat diet. Mice exposed to the same bacterium but which were fed a normal diet did not develop obesity. A further control group was fed a high fat diet but this group was not exposed to the bacterium and the members of the group did not develop obesity or insulin resistance.

This is not the first time that scientists have proposed that gut bacteria may play a role in obesity. I remember reading study a few years back from scientists at Washington University School of Medicine that postulated a link but it was unable to demonstrate a causative effect.

The study by the scientists at the Chinese university where the latest research was conducted are not advancing the theory that this particular bacterium is the sole bacterium that may have an impact on obesity and much more work needs to be done but they have managed to demonstrate that an endotoxin-producing bacterium appears to have a role. When the human volunteer from whom the bacterium was isolated in the first place was put on a special diet of probiotics, whole grains and some Chinese medicinal products, the concentration of the enterobacter levels fell from 35% to undetectable levels at the end of the 23 week trial. Over the same period, the volunteer lost 51 kg.

While this study is fascinating, there was only one human volunteer. We would really need to see a much larger study that replicated the controls in the mouse study before we could be satisfied that there really is a connection between endotoxin-producing bacterium and obesity.





 
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