Gut bacteria and weight loss

[Mychildkeepswhining]

I have been reading through a few threads recently whereby slim people have been sharing their lifestyle factors/ways of eating which keeps them this way and have come across a few posts citing gut bacteria as a reason. This has sparked an interest as have never considered this before. Can anyone shed any further light on this? I.e if I start taking a probiotic daily will this help me stay slim?

Taking a probiotic won’t magically make you slim, & I understand that a lot of probiotics taken in tablet form don’t make it to the gut, and that changes in diet are more successful in increasing gut health.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3qzlNrQZtTqYzvwh3d40/can-i-alter-my-gut-bacteria-and-improve-my-health

Channel 4 live well for longer also did a good programme about kefir, fruit & veg & improving gut health but I can’t link it. It does come up if you search though.

this is an interesting article.

only a fraction of weight loss can be controlled by these microbes
www.bbc.com/future/article/20190212-could-gut-bacteria-microbes-make-you-fat

I don't think it by itself helps with weight, but because it makes you digest better, gets rid of bloating etc and so you have more energy, it works.
I am eating live bacteria yogurts and fermented vegetables and my overall health is absolutely better. Which in turn means I can workout and cobtrol food better.

It also helped me with issues with gluten/wheat/whatever that was which was physically painful. I can now eat bread like before the issues started!

Think about it. Most we now eat is pasteurised. We have barely any bacteria coming in unlike ywars ago.

Watching with interest.....

I doubt it's useful as a slimming aid but I've seen TV programmes linking gut bacteria with some people being overweight despite not over-eating.

A BBC programme a few years ago ("Doctor in the House" I think it was called) had a doctor investigating why a boy was so overweight, and borderline diabetic. His parents weren't overweight, food wasn't unhealthy, and portion size was fine. Turned out it was gut bacteria, or lack of. He was put on a special diet - I remember it included a lot of stewed apple - and also took pro biotics (proper ones, not daily yoghurt drinks). And that sorted it. But it was medically diagnosed from stool samples.

Another item (can't remember if same programme or not) was an American woman who needed a medical procedure that resulted in her gut bacteria being destroyed. To reintroduce bacteria to her gut she was given bacteria via a faecal donation from her daughter. And afterwards she became permanently overweight, whereas she had always been slim before. The doctors believe there's a link between gut bacteria and weight gain, and now only use faecal donations from 'lean' people.

So yes, it seems there is a link but only in extreme cases. I think pro biotic products are just a marketing ploy and you'd be better looking at how diet can improve gut health naturally.

Eat yogurt and take prebiotics, will help with digestion and bloating, it's not a magical cure to help you lose weight.

I read a study fairly recently- skimmed it and intended to go back but forgot .

Gist was that different people’s microbiomes mean they fare better on different diets. Some people have gut bacteria primed to breakdown carbs, so high carb/low fat works best for them- and vice versa.

Some of it is environmental- family, bacteria you’re born with etc. Some is lifestyle, for example if you were and athlete of grew up very sporty, you’re more likely to have the carb digesting bacteria.

Was interesting. Makes sense to me as I was a competitive athlete until my teens, and if i cut carbs I am seriously starving. Can go without fat and protein no problem though. The toast diet may not be balanced but is effective for me!!

Good thread OP. I wish there was more research into this. Also into the gut-brain connection for moods/depression.
Doesn't certain bacteria or yeast in the gut cause sugar cravings?

I studied this a tiny bit in post-grad school. The field of gut biomes and the enteric nervous system is fascinating, but not massively well-researched.

There is certainly evidence to suggest a link between gut biome and obesity. Studies have shown that when obese people receive faecal transplants from skinny people they lose weight, and vice versa. In theory faecal transplants could possibly become a weight loss "cure" (they are already used to treat certain bowel conditions) but it's very unlikely just because the 'ick factor' would be too much for most people.

I recommend this amazing book as a good primer on the gut and gut health in general:
www.goodreads.com/book/show/23013953-gut

@Mychildkeepswhining Taking a probiotic and then not feeding that bacteria the food it needs will be useless.
It is like adopting a dog to bring joy in your home but if you feed that dog chocolate every day instead of dog-right food, the dog will die, and no joy in the house.

So yes you can take a probiotic either in fermented food or a pill, but then you need to eat a lot of prebiotic food such as Chicory Root. Chicory root
Dandelion Greens...
Jerusalem Artichoke. ...
Garlic. ...
Onions. ...
Leeks. ...
Asparagus. ...
Green bananas...
Flax seeds (must be grounded)

and also eat a lot of vegetables.

Otherwise, you won't change the species you have.

This has been proven in the focal transplant studies. The beneficial changes are short term without dietary intervention and are completely gone after 18 weeks.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6835402/

Bottom line, learn how to do sauerkraut, drink unsweetened kefir, eat a lot of inulin rich food and aim to eat around 75 gr of fibre per day if you really want to change your gut species.

Thank you all for your replies. Some really interesting points made. Schrodinger, that makes perfect sense and will take on board your reply, especially after a week of eating rubbish and feeling bloated and sluggish.
Kaiken, I did do a bit of research last night and think you are absolutely right in terms of also eating prebiotic foods. But, I'm not sure I could manage 75g of fibre a day without constantly being on the loo!
I have gone ahead and ordered some probiotics from Natures Best. If nothing else, it may help with my sluggish feeling and as schrodinger said, make me feel a bit more able to be active on a daily basis.
Thank you for all the links. Am going through them as find it really interesting.
Those that made the point that taking a probiotic alone will not keep a person slim, yes...I agree. It is a whole lifestyle change. I.e cutting down on the snacking and upping the exercise but am still keen to see if taking a probiotic makes any difference at all.

Bluebluezoo, you also made an interesting point regarding carbohydrates. Some people seem to lose a lot of weight by restricting these (I have done in the past too)- but I crave them like nobody's business and feel rubbish until I've eaten a piece of toast etc...and my body and digestion seem happier with them. Some people though seem to be able to go without carbs quite easily and feel perfectly fine by consuming high fat and protein instead. If I eat a lot of fatty foods I feel sick and get terrible indigestion . Ditto for excessive amounts of protein.

About 20% of people are methane producers. Methane can slow gut transit time and increase calorific harvest from food. Basically people with methanogens absorb more calories from food than others.

The archaea in the gut responsible for methane production can overgrow and cause problems. If you’re interested I. This look into the work of Dr Ruchi Mathur of Cedars-Sinai. Dr Mark Pimentel and Dr Ali Rezaie are in the same research group and you may find some of their work interesting too.

Some people have found L.Reutri useful in reducing IMO (intestinal methanogenic overgrowth). Biogaia Protectis drops. But for this to be relevant you’d need to be both a methane producer and have an overgrowth. Things like bloating. constipation and tendency to gain weight easily on a normal daily calorie intake would hint at this.

By the way, indigestion and feeling sick on a high protein /fat diet are possibly indicators of Hydrogen Sulfide Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) which is often co-morbid with IMO (Intestinal methanogenic overgrowth). Dr Mark Pimentel has a lot of research on that.

Hydrogen Sulfide SIBO symptoms are diarrhoea, stomach pain, acid reflux, nausea, skin rashes, rapid weight loss, insomnia.

If you’ve ever been diagnosed with or suspected IBS, then this is an area to look into. Roughly speaking IBS-D maps onto Hydroden Sulfide SIBO, IBS-C maps onto IMO, and IBS-M maos into having both H2S SIBO and IMO.

People sometimes have both H2S SIBO and IMO and swing back and forth between the two depending on diet. High protein/high animal fat diets promote H2S producing bacteria and carbier/ higher fibre diets promote methanogenic archea.

Symptoms of IMO are often less acute than H2S SIBO. SIBO/IMO underlie about 70% of IBS.

For Hydrogen Sulfide SIBO, a good probiotic is L.Plantarum 299v. There’s a good study on it’s effectiveness in PI-IBS, so if you Google L.Plantarum 299v and PI-IBS you should find it. H2S SIBO underlies many cases of PI-IBS.

If anyone wants to make sauerkraut it's incredibly easy😁 The one in shops is pasteurised (otherwise it would explode). Also kombucha is lovely. You can ferment pretty much anything. Cauliflower is delicious! Best thing is that it's a tasty way to get some lactobacillus in with food because these are easily incorporated into meals.

Don't expect immediate effect with the probiotics. It takes few weeks for gut to settle. I think mine took a month to feel big difference. I did take food route, rather than pill route (sauerkraut is great low cal snack) so maybe that's why. First week you might be bit... Playing music from your behind... It settles and the difference is considerable.😁
I did combo of live bacteria yogurts (homemade as well) and fermenting like crazy.

There was an episode of Horizon called Why are we getting fat?" about this. Giles Yeo from Cambridge Uni has done a lot of work on it. He did find differences in the gut bacteria of overweight and healthy weight people. It's not available on iplayer at the moment but they do repeat episodes of horizon on tv. Might be on YouTube

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07fys2y

Found it on youtube
www.dailymotion.com/video/x6rluxp

Thank you cherry lilt, I will have a look later when ds is in bed.
Panther, you seem very knowledgeable in this area so thank you for responding. Interestingly, the symptoms you mention in regards to sibo (excluding a skin rash) are all symptoms I suffer from regularly and have self diagnosed IBS (for which I take senocalm but at £10 a pack is rather expensive). I will certainly look into taking the probiotic you recommended but firstly will try the ones I have just ordered. Schrodinger, yes, I did read an article yesterday sayi6to allow 4 weeks until you feel the full benefit. I'm not great at eating foods with strong flavours/spices/acidity anymore (since birth of my ds) so probably would struggle with some of the foods e.g kimchi and sauerkraut. To ask a silly question though, is live yogurt easy to make? And how about kombucha or kefir? I had a look today in sainsbury's and both of these were over £2 per bottle (500ml I think). If I could make these at home I'd definitely give it a go

Also, to put another slant on the question, which foods (if any)are bad/destroy healthy gut bacteria?

Yogurt is incredibly easy. You can either buy the cultures or you can buy yogurt you like and use that (I use yeo valley kefir one). I have a yogurt maker. Then you need a thermometer. Litre of full fat milk, 150-200g of some nice yogurt (i eat the rest the same day while new one is making), bit of faff with heating and cooling, but 8 hours in the maker, you have beautiful yogurt. I eat yogurt every day so it lasts us about 5 days. Cost all in all is about £2? The maker has paid for itself already.
I haven't made kefir or kombucha yet. I buy the kombucha for now. At the moment I have 4 ferments going or in a fridge😁
If you want some inspiration to try, check out instagram. Some great fermenting profiles there with great ideas and some tips for simple things like cucumbers (which taste exactly like picled in the end).

Btw that yogurt maker works also as soft cheese maker AND poaching machine for meat and stuff because it holds temperature😂 Come to think of it, it could do the kefir too because it has lower temperature programme for up to 99 hours and that needs about 24?

Amazing info on this thread! I don't know the exact science behind it so it's good to read it. I just know it made me better

Thank you @TuxedoPantherSheHer . My whole life I have been plagued by constipation, slow intestinal transit time and gain weight easily on low calorie intakes (maintain on about 1300 calls).

In addition to getting hold of the right probiotic, is there any other dietary or supplement advice?

@Defiantly41 There are a lot of avenues that can help.

Firstly, I would say it’s really important to do a bit of research. Dr Mark Pimentel, Alison Siebecker and Nirala Jacobi are good places to start. De Pimentel has some really good presentations out there about this ( his Facebook page and Twitter account have lots of links).

There’s a lot of info out there, some of it good, some of it bad so use your judgement.

IMO used to be referred to ( and still often is referred to) as SIBO-M or methane dominant SIBO.

Dietary approaches I have found useful are/

1. Cedars- Sinai Low fermentation diet, particularly in meal spacing and timing
2. Low FODMAP- helped me find trigger foods
3. Fast Tracy Diet (Norm Robillard)- not all carbs/ starches are equal, some are much better for people with SIBO/IMO than others.

Good luck and PM of you ever want to chat about it.

@Mychildkeepswhining

Also, to put another slant on the question, which foods (if any)are bad/destroy healthy gut bacteria?

The worst food for healthy gut bacteria are

• artificial sweeteners
• animal protein
• fried food
• food additives, highly present in processed food

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5385025/

Bone broth is beneficial to gut though. And more.

Thank you kaiken- I do use artificial sweeteners in coffee (and drink a lot of it) under the impression they're better than sugar but will definitely try to stop/use less. I've started eating more beans/pulses/nuts instead of the meat/processed rubbish I was consuming. You've been very informative so thank you again.
Schrodinger, will look into getting a yogurt maker as I do love it and have always eaten it on a daily basis but making my own would cut down costs and maybe be healthier than shop bought. Will buy some kombucha and kefir to try and then look into making it.
Tuxedopanther- I looked at the probiotics you recommended and they are very cost effective and had superb reviews so have made a note and will buy some to try . I would never have come across these without your suggestion so thank you for that.

Have a read of The Clever Guts Diet by Dr Michael Mosly . All about the gut diet in general , not a reducing diet book .

He has done a TV program about it too .

I lost 3 stone by changing my eating following the book and not dieting.