Author Interviews, Microbiome, Nature, Weight Research / 03.12.2016
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.
(more…)