Some just have to look at a piece of cake and it lands on their hips. The others can feast endlessly and not gain weight. Why this is not a myth and what it has to do with our intestines.
Yes, they really exist! The fellow human beings who only have to look at a piece of cake and it lands on their hips. Those who find it difficult to maintain their weight, even though they claim they don’t eat any more than others. So far they have been laughed at. But now they are getting support from microbiome research. Because obviously there are clear differences in the composition of the intestinal flora between good and bad “feed converters”.
This was discovered by a research team led by biologist Jeffrey Gordon in the laboratories of Washington University in St. Louis. Comparisons of the intestinal flora of obese mice and their lean siblings as well as of obese and lean human test subjects show that in obesity the ratio of the two dominant bacterial strains Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes becomes imbalanced.
The microbial mix is responsible for how well or poorly we utilize our food and how many calories are drawn from the food. If the number of Firmicutes increases by only 20 percent, then ten percent more calories are channeled into the body every day. That doesn’t sound like much at first, but over the course of a year it adds up to around eight additional kilos. At the same time, with increasing pounds, the bacterial diversity in the digestive tract is lost.
Now the question of the chicken and the egg arises. Do overweight people have a different intestinal flora because they eat differently and eat fast food and sweets more often? Or are the microorganisms in the gut really to blame if you can’t shed the pounds?
Answers to this were provided by the transfer of fecal pellets from overweight mice to their slim counterparts. Within a very short time, these put on – with the same feed – significantly in weight. In order to rule out genetic factors, human twin pairs were sought, one of which was slim and the other tended to be overweight, and their intestinal germs were transferred to two groups of slim mice. As expected, the animals with the “thick” microbiome quickly became obese, the others ate the same amount of grains and still remained slim and slim.
Suspicion quickly falls on our modern Western lifestyle with a low-fiber and high-fat diet. Because the slimming germs in the intestines need special plant fibers, so-called prebiotics, in order to grow and thrive. These are included, among other things, in foods that you usually look for in vain in modern fast food kitchens:
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But the microbiome researchers also have their sights set on antibiotics, because nothing disturbs the intestinal peace as lastingly as the germ killers. It has been known from cattle breeding since the 1940s that low-dose antibiotics lead to faster master episodes. The consequences can also be read off the scales in humans: Studies have found that babies who received antibiotics in the first six months of life were more often overweight by the age of three and when they started school.
It is similar for adults – despite their much more stable intestinal flora. A year later, of 48 men who had to undergo six-week antibiotic treatment after an operation, 17 had an increase in BMI (body mass index) of more than ten percent, and five had even become obese. Of the 48 men in the comparison group who did not receive any medication, only one person gained weight.
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If one does not take care of the regeneration of the intestinal flora after antibiotic treatment, it takes at least six months until the original condition is largely restored. If there are two or more therapies within a year, the number of microorganisms still shows clear gaps two years later, which are then often occupied by strains that promote inflammation and metabolic disorders.
So what could be more obvious than bringing order to the intestines if you want to lose weight? If the diet is changed, measurable changes can be seen after just a few days. The diversity of the intestinal flora increases, the ratio between Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes develops favorably and inflammation decreases as soon as more fiber and less fat, sweeteners and emulsifiers are put on the plate.
This favorable development can also be supported by synbiotics, i.e. food supplements that contain both intestinal-friendly germs and prebiotics as “bacterial food”.
In addition, the following things can help to turn a dull intestinal flora into a flourishing bacterial landscape again:
But perseverance is necessary, because it can take months for the microbiome to stabilize.
Michaela Axt-Gadermann is a doctor and professor for health promotion in the “Integrative Health Promotion” course at Coburg University. The 49-year-old lives with her husband and children near Fulda. On the subject of “intestines” she has developed a licensed nutrition program recognized by health insurance companies and, among other things, the book “
