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7 Science Secrets About Bacteria and Weight Loss UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Contents Why bacteria and weight loss? 3 1. Overweight people have less bacterial variety 4 2. Eat beans to get bacteria like a skinny person 5 3. Meat that contains antibiotics can lead to weight gain 6 4. Cut your risk of Type 2 diabetes by boosting bacterial diversity 7 5. Fool your brain into believing you’re not hungry 8 6. Taking fiber supplements can work as well as fiber from food 9 7. Stop your bacteria from eating into your gut lining 10 Pulling it all together 11 Who is uBiome? 12 References 13 UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Hello! ulcerative colitis; irritable bowel 1. Many people (perhaps depend on what you eat and the syndrome (IBS); esophageal reflux amount of exercise you do? and esophageal cancer; Clostridium including you?) would like to What if your weight didn’t only What if there was another factor at play? A factor that might be stopping you from losing weight no difficile infection; colorectal cancer; and liver and biliary tract diseases. 2. There are many scientific This ebook, though, focuses on studies which suggest links matter how little you eat, or how yet another aspect of your much exercise you do? physiology in which your bacteria Enter the human microbiome. Over the past ten years science play a part, and that’s your weight. For years it was believed that an has begun to investigate the richly individual’s body weight was solely diverse community of bacteria, driven by the caloric value of the known as the microbiome, that each food they ate and the amount of and every one of us carries in and physical exercise they did. on our bodies. Your microbiome contains ten However this didn’t seem to The book aims to address this, getting the latest information into helpful! however little they exercise, while somewhere around three to six others appear to put on weight (or The uBiome Team pounds of your total weight. be unable to lose it) even on strict dieting and exercise regimes. that the types of bacteria in the gut physicians. The reader should regularly otherwise be able to digest. Other can play a big part in weight loss or bacteria enable your body to gain. synthesize vitamins. However, less benign microbes However, new research suggests As research on the human microbiome is ongoing and rapidly may play a part in all sorts of health developing, it would be just about conditions, some of them very impossible to produce an up-to-date serious, such as Celiac disease; book covering the world of weight If you are concerned about a medical issue, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and bacteria in its entirety, but for please see your healthcare provider. including both Crohn’s disease and us three important things stood out: test and cannot predict your future health. make it into the mainstream. your whole body, and it accounts for your gut digest foods that it wouldn’t Note also that uBiome is not a diagnostic time for scientific findings to your hands. We hope you find it substitute for the medical advice of medical attention. 3. It can often take a long stay lean whatever they eat and of vital jobs. For example they help symptoms that may require diagnosis or and weight loss. times more cells than you have in Please note: This book is not intended as a health and particularly with respect to any between the microbiome allow for the fact that some people Your bacteria perform all sorts consult a physician in matters relating to lose weight. 3 1. Overweight people have less bacterial variety UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Let’s begin with a fascinating Furthermore, the fatter mice While these have to pass experiment that was done at were found to have a less diverse through the strongly acidic Washington University in St Louis microbial gut community. conditions of the stomach before in 2013. When bacteria from obese humans was transplanted into mice that had been specially bred What can we take from these findings? It certainly seems to be the to be germ-free, the mice started case that an obese person’s putting on weight. microbiome differs from that of a The study recruited pairs of lean individual, and that bacteria human female twins in which one in the gut may play a part in woman was obese, while the other weight gain. was lean. So-called “humanized mice” evidence that a proportion of these helpful bacteria will make it through. Fermented foods include sauerkraut, pickles, kefir, live yoghurt, and kimchi. Yum! While it’s not yet possible to identify a “fat bacterium”, it’s worth (mice which carry functioning noting that obese people appear human genes, cells, and tissues to have less bacterial diversity, are often used in scientific suggesting that there could be research) had their guts populated weight-loss benefits from with microbes from either the lean introducing a wider variety of or obese sister. microbes into the gut. Although the mice then reaching your gut, there is some One way this could be received the same amount of food, achieved is by eating a diverse diet those which had been given which includes fermented foods bacteria from the obese twin put containing live microbes. on more body weight and grew heavier than the mice that received the flora of the lean woman. 4 2. Eat beans to get bacteria like a skinny person UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Dysbiosis is a term which is Back in the land of bacteria, This could be highly significant. used to describe a microbial the equivalent to kingdom would imbalance on or inside the human be Eubacteria and the phyla in known people who can apparently body. question are, as we said, eat trayloads of cake without Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. putting on a pound, and it may be The bacteria in your gut plays a vital part in your health and wellbeing, but problems can result when this careful balance is disturbed. For example, the two most useful bacteria “phyla” are Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. If it sounds complicated to you, you’re not the only one. For now, however, let’s just focus on the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes. Obese individuals have fewer Bacteroidetes and more Firmicutes Phyla? than their lean equivalents: we’re Phyla is the plural of phylum, back to dysbiosis again. which in biology means the Something intriguing happens Anecdotally, we’ve probably all that this ability to consume without gaining weight could be explained in part by having more Bacteroidetes in the gut. Can this be hacked? Is it possible to increase your Bacteroidetes levels? One way could be to eat more beans, a great source taxonomic (naming) rank below when the gut becomes imbalanced of dietary fiber, because kingdom and above class. in this way: the gut actually bacteroidetes just love fiber. One way to make sense of this is to consider animals. The kingdom would be Animalia. One class could be Mammalia (mammals). In between these comes the becomes more efficient at extracting energy from food. When the microbiomes of mice are changed in this way, tilting the bacterial balance in favour of Firmicutes, they absorb more phylum Chordata, which means calories even though they eat the animals with backbones. same amount of food. 5 3. Meat that contains antibiotics can lead to weight gain UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Antibiotics are incredible, lifesaving medicines. Today, however, overuse of them is a major cause for concern. When antibiotics are overused, The result? of calories as mice in a control The antibiotic-dosed recruits group. gained more weight than a control group. Unfortunately antibiotics can What to make of this? While it’s not always easy to know whether the meat you’re their effectiveness decreases, as end up in humans even when they eating contains antibiotics, many bugs learn to adapt to them, and haven’t been prescribed. supermarkets do label products they can also wipe out the gut’s healthy bacteria. But there may also be a connection between the use of antibiotics and obesity, which is perhaps not so surprising when you stop to think that antibiotics This happens through the simple process of eating meat from animals that have been given antibiotics as a growth agent. Weight gain can occur even at these low levels of exposure. In a study at the New York helpfully. Look for “Antibiotic-Free” for example. A crowd-sourced website at realtimefarms.com/ fixantibiotics shows retailers, have been used to promote University School of Medicine, farmers’ markets, and growth in the livestock industry, a researchers injected mice with a practice the Centers for Disease “subtherapeutic antibiotic eateries which sell meat Control has condemned as not treatment” (antibiotics at a level necessary, by the way. low enough to have no health If antibiotics can fatten a cow dose of antibiotics that a similar effect on a human? humans often experiments have shown this to be so. For instance a 1954 study fed a Bon appetit! benefits) containing the same low or chicken, why wouldn’t they have Actually they do, and without antibiotics. unknowingly consume in animal meat. Over time the result daily diet of antibiotics to several was that these mice hundred Navy recruits for seven became fat, despite weeks. eating the same amount 6 4. Cut your risk of Type 2 diabetes by boosting bacterial diversity UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Lots of microbiome-related The study also found that Another way to up your studies are based on mice. There’s among the obese participants, microbial diversity is to eat nothing wrong with that, unless of those who had a low diversity of fermented foods (probiotics) on a course you’re a mouse. gut bacteria gained substantially regular basis – things like pickled more weight over a nine year veggies, kombucha, kimchi and period. sauerkraut. It wasn’t always so but in fact these days lab mice get treated pretty humanely. However it’s always nice to If your goal is to increase the When you do, accompany diversity of your own gut bacteria, them with the type of fiber- come across a good gut bacteria experts suggest a number of ways containing foods (called prebiotics) experiment carried out on human to do so that. that provide nourishment for the subjects, and for this particular one we have the Danes to thank. In a paper published in Nature One is to stop over-doing things with personal cleanliness. Soap and water now and then probiotics you’re consuming. Useful foods considered in August 2013, an international are fine, but by depending on prebiotics include asparagus, team of researchers examined hand-sanitizer at multiple points stool samples from 123 lean and every day we may be denying our artichokes, onions, garlic, 169 obese Danish adults. bodies exposure to a wide What did they learn? For a assortment of microbes, many of start, individuals with less diversity which could actually do us good. oats, and beans. of bacteria in their microbiomes were more likely to suffer from inflammation, and also to show greater resistance to insulin. Insulin resistance can lead to high blood sugar and may ultimately contribute to a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. 7 5. Fool your brain into believing you’re not hungry UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS The brain talks to the gut, and the gut talks back. Thanks to a remarkable aspect Bifidobacteria in their guts, which more onions, bananas, garlic, in turn led to increased chicory, and wheat, and look for fermentation and decreased food oligofructose supplements. Also of physiology called the brain-gut intake, fat mass, and hepatic check for oligofructose when you axis, microbes in your gut can steatosis (less fat build-up in the buy manufactured foods such as send information to your brain liver). Oligofructose is a dietary frozen desserts, fruit yogurt, which then controls your body’s fiber found in vegetables such as cereal, cookies, and dairy response to insulin, how quickly onions, bananas, garlic, chicory, products. gastric emptying takes place, and and wheat, as well as being how full you feel after eating available as a supplement. Fun Facts (satiety). All these factors can have Manufactured foods such as A Probiotic is a food or dietary an influence on weight gain and frozen desserts, fruit yogurt, supplement containing live obesity. cereal, cookies, and dairy products bacteria that replace or add to also commonly contain the beneficial bacteria the brain in two ways: through the oligofructose. It acts as a normally present in the nervous system (neural pathways) “prebiotic”, providing nutrients for gastrointestinal tract. and the endocrine system. The the good bacteria in your gut. The gut communicates with endocrine system is a network of A small study at the University glands which controls many of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium, important bodily functions by showed that human participants producing and releasing who consumed 8 grams of oligo- hormones. Much of the work in fructose twice a day (breakfast and this area has made use of germ- dinner time) showed increased free rats, and as we’ve already satiety (they felt fuller) and also shown, experiments on mice and experienced reduced hunger, rats pretty much mimic the effects being less likely to wish to eat that can be expected when the more food after dinner. same investigations are carried out on humans. Rodents who were fed A Prebiotic is a nondigestible food ingredient which promotes the growth of beneficial microorganisms in the intestines. Prebiotics are like food for Probiotics. Since oligofructose passes through the body without being metabolised, it’s lower in calories something called oligofructose than other kinds of carbohydrates. ended up with higher levels of You may want to try eating 8 6. Taking fiber supplements can work as well as fiber from food UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Increasing the amount of fiber in your diet is a good thing for many reasons, but what do you do when it’s difficult to make substantial changes to what you eat? Can supplements help? Well, according to research conducted by a team at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, eating fiber-enriched snack bars may do the job almost as well. Kelly Swanson, a Professor of nutrition, led a team which worked with 20 healthy men. A control group ate a snack bar with no fiber content twice a day for 21 days and a second group consumed snack bars containing 21 grams of polydextrose, a common fiber food additive. A third group ate bars with 21 grams of soluble corn fiber. Poop samples drawn from all participants before and after the experiment were subjected to DNA analysis. What most surprised the researchers was a shift in the ratio of two bacterial phyla – Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes – towards more Bacteroidetes and less Firmicutes. Having more Bacteroidetes may be beneficial because the higher its proportion, the leaner that individual tends to be. With higher Firmicutes, an individual is inclined to be obese. The soluble corn fiber bars outperformed the polydextrose ones very slightly. Of additional note was the fact that the gut balances of the participants returned to normal at the end of the experiment, strongly suggesting the need to maintain increased fiber consumption rather than having periodic fiber binges. Soluble corn fiber is also known as corn syrup (the fiber is water-soluble), not to be confused with high fructose corn syrup in which some of corn syrup’s glucose has been enzymatically converted to fructose. It’s complicated, but in general terms glucose is better for you than fructose, even though they’re both sugars. Find fiber supplements containing polydextrose or soluble corn fiber. 9 7. Stop your bacteria from eating your gut lining UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS A single bacterium is truly a enough of is fiber, which you feed derived toxins are able to get in to sight to behold. Through a them whenever you eat whole the bloodstream. A breached gut powerful microscope you’d see grains, legumes (beans etc), fruit, barrier can also lead to adiposity, that most bacteria are one of and vegetables. where fat gets stored in your fatty three different shapes. Some are Eating fiber keeps your bowel tissues, and weight gain. spherical (coccus), others are movements regular and also helps “rods” which look something like you feel full after a meal, making it too little fiber. The Institute of medication capsules (bacillus), less likely that you’ll overeat. But it Medicine recommends that while the third type are spirals – also plays a vital part in keeping women should get 25 grams per imagine a twisty pig’s tail (spirillus). your gut bacteria healthy. day and men should consume 38 And they’re really small. Take E. coli, for instance. If you were the size of an amoeba, an E. coli Without it, your bacteria may start seriously misbehaving. Researchers at the University bacterium would be about as big of Michigan Medical School as an ant to you. discovered that the microbes of Amoebas are tiny themselves, mice who were fed a fiber-free Most adults in the West eat far grams, but the average daily intake is just 15 grams. Eating fiber as part of a weight-management program makes a lot of sense. Check labels in the store, of course. To give you an idea of diet began to eat away at the gut’s and add whole grains, beans, scale, though, under the right protective mucus lining, potentially conditions they’re sometimes just triggering inflammation. Systemic peas, fruits, and vegetables about possible to see with the inflammation has important unaided eye. implications for many aspects of So what do these miniscule health, leading to cardiovascular creatures eat? Well, it varies. Some illness, dementia, gastrointestinal have extraordinarily weird dietary disorders, Type 2 diabetes, and preferences. One particular strain, plenty of other conditions. It may for instance, eats radioactive also be the cause of weight gain. waste. Another likes to tuck into When inflammation interferes steel. Fortunately the bacteria in with the gut barrier (which among your gut have more conservative other things keeps pathogens out tastes. One thing they can’t get of the bloodstream), bacteria- whenever possible. 10 UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Pulling it all together Here’s what we know about bacteria and weight loss. Why not print this page and post it in your kitchen as a reminder? 1 Increase your gut’s bacterial 5 When you shop for manufactured diversity by eating fermented foods foods like frozen desserts, fruit like sauerkraut, pickles, kefir, live yogurt, cereal, cookies, and dairy yogurt, and kimchi. products, look for a prebiotic called oligofructose. 2 Avoid meats containing antibiotics, which can lead to weight gain. 6 If you choose a fiber supplement it can help to look for one containing 3 Eating more dietary fiber, such as polydextrose or soluble corn fiber. beans, can give you the microbiome of a skinnier person. 7 Avoid inflammation by eating a variety of fiber-rich foods such as 4 Feed the bacteria in fermented wholegrains, peas, fruits, foods by eating prebiotics like vegetables, and (of course) beans, asparagus, artichokes, onions, whenever possible. garlic, and oats. 11 UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS Who is uBiome? uBiome is the leading microbial genomics company. It was founded in 2012 by UCSF scientists and technologists from Stanford and Cambridge after a crowd-funding campaign raised more than $350,000 from citizen scientists, triple its initial goal. uBiome is now backed by 2. Answer a Simple Survey Our online survey lets you answer questions about your health and lifestyle. Then you can see how you correlate with others. We tell you how you match up to other users, to existing peerreviewed studies, and to your 2. Analyze We compare the ‘fingerprints’ we find to our bacterial reference library, to determine which bacteria they came from. 3. Compile Your Results We make your results easy to previous samples. understand. You can compare Y Combinator, and other leading We Get Up Close and Personal groups: vegetarians, people on investors. The company’s mission With Your Samples antibiotics, or athletes, for Andreessen Horowitz, is to use big data to understand the human microbiome by giving consumers the power to learn about their bodies, perform experiments, and see how current research studies apply to them. How It Works 1. Sample Your Microbiome A uBiome kit contains everything you need to swab and submit your microbiome sample. Whether for your mouth, ears, nose, gut, or genitals, your kit will allow you to learn more about the uBiome is a microbiome sequencing service that provides information and tools for you to explore your microbiome. Based your graphs to those of other example. Get your microbiome tested now! www.ubiome.com on research from the NIH Human Even better, get 10% off by Microbiome Project, we've entering the discount code: perfected the technology to SECRETSCIENCE7 perform large-scale microbiome studies. Once we receive your sample, it goes in the lab and the magic happens. What Happens In The Lab 1. Sequence We extract the bacterial DNA bacteria in your body. You just out of the sample you’ve sent us. swipe the sample swab back and Then we read the DNA sequences. forth across the corresponding site It’s a little like dusting a scene for and send the kit back to us. fingerprints. 12 UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS References Antibiotics in early life alter murine colonic microbiome and adiposity http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22914093 Obesity and Overweight – Achieving Permanent Weight Loss http://raphaelkellmanmd.com/specialties/obesity-overweight/ Brain–Gut–Microbe Communication in Health and Disease http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232439/ Obesity via Microbe Transplants – The Scientist Magazine http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/37367/title/Obesityvia-Microbe-Transplants/ Build A Better Microbiome – 7 Ways to Embrace More Microbes http://www.drfranklipman.com/build-a-better-microbiome/ Diet, gut microbiota and immune responses – Nature Immunology http://www.nature.com/articles/ni0111-5.epdf Fat-Fighting Bacteria Show the Microbiome’s Therapeutic Potential http://www.technologyreview.com/news/536376/microbes-engineered-toprevent-obesity/ Fix Antibiotics http://www.realtimefarms.com/fixantibiotics Genetically Altered Bacteria Prevent Mice From Getting Fat – Popular Science http://www.popsci.com/article/science/genetically-altered-bacteriaprevent-mice-getting-fat Obesity, Bariatrics and the Microbiome http://www.laparoscopic.md/bariatric/microbiome Oligofructose promotes satiety in healthy human – a pilot study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16340949 On communication between gut microbes and the brain http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23010679 Richness of human gut microbiome correlates with metabolic markers http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7464/full/nature12506.html ?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20130829 Shift in gut bacteria observed in fiber supplement study http://news.aces.illinois.edu/news/shift-gut-bacteria-observed-fibersupplement-study-may-offer-good-news-weight-loss How Gut Bacteria Help Make Us Fat and Thin – Scientific American http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-makeus-fat-and-thin/ The Fat Drug – The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fatdrug.html?_r=0 How the gut’s “microbiome” affects weight gain – CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-guts-microbiome-affects-weightgain/ The Gut Microbiome Influences Whether Or Not You’re Fat http://science.time.com/2013/08/29/you-are-your-bacteria-how-the-gutmicrobiome-influences-health/ How You Can Help Prevent Antibiotic Resistance http://www.healthline.com/health/antibiotics/how-you-can-help-preventresistance The Role of the Gut Microbiome http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030605/ Influence of intestinal microbiota on body weight gain http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25511750 Intestinal microbiota during infancy and its implications http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Reinhardt+C,+Reigstad+CS,+ Backhed+F.+Intestinal+microbiota+during+infancy+and+its+implications+f or+obesity.+Journal+of+Pediatric+Gastroenterology+and+Nutrition+2009; 48:249%E2%80%9356. JCI – Incorporation of therapeutically modified bacteria into gut microbiota inhibits obesity http://www.jci.org/articles/view/72517 Weight Gain After Fecal Microbiota Transplantation http://ofid.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/ofv004.full.pdf+html Western diet destroys healthy bacteria – The Times http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4459954.ece What Is the Difference Between Sucrose, Glucose & Fructose? http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/difference-between-sucrose-glucosefructose-8704.html Why Your Gut Microbiome Could Hold the Key to Solving Obesity http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerard-e-mullin-md/gutmicrobiome_b_7548632.html 13