03 Dec Microbiome Is Major Driver of Recurrent Obesity

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Eran Elinav. Principal investigator
Immunology Department
Weizmann Institute of Science
Rehovot, Israel

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Recurrent obesity is a very common yet poorly studied and under researched phenomenon. It is well known that many people diet, but then regain the weight they lost and even add more weight. We found that the gut microbiome is a major driver of this enhanced weight regain phenomenon. We found that in the obese state, the microbiome is altered, and these alterations are not reversed upon weight loss. And these alterations are sufficient to drive weight regain, since transferring them to germ-free mice also transferred the enhanced weight regain phenotype.

Moreover, we provide three different treatments for this condition:
(1) Antibiotics;
(2) transfer of bacteria from lean mice; and
(3) addition of specific molecules that we found to be lacking in the altered microbiome.

All of these treatments cured the mice we tested from enhanced weight regain.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: That the microbiome is a major driver of recurrent obesity. And that we might be able to cure and treat this phenomenon, by identifying therapies that are targeted at the microbiome.

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Response: Future research will examine this phenomenon in humans. We are now engaged in such studies in an attempt to identify specific molecules whose administration may treat this condition in humans

MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.

Citation:

Christoph A. Thaiss, Shlomik Itav, Daphna Rothschild, Mariska Meijer, Maayan Levy, Claudia Moresi, Lenka Dohnalová, Sofia Braverman, Shachar Rozin, Sergey Malitsky, Mally Dori-Bachash, Yael Kuperman, Inbal Biton, Arieh Gertler, Alon Harmelin, Hagit Shapiro, Zamir Halpern, Asaph Aharoni, Eran Segal, Eran Elinav. Persistent microbiome alterations modulate the rate of post-dieting weight regain. Nature, 2016; DOI: 10.1038/nature20796

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Last Updated on December 3, 2016 by Marie Benz MD FAAD