The gut microbiome has been called our seccond brain and it is for a very specific reason: our body is controlled by our gut microbiome. We used to think that the bacteria in our gut was only there to help us in our digestive process, but we now know that the microbiome has an enormous amount of functions in our body.

There have been very interesting studies in relation to the gut microbiome and being overweight. Since this is a topic that many people struggle with, I wanted to show you just how potent our microbiome is.

In a study published in 2020, researchers included 87 participants around the ages of 17 years old who were obese. They were given a single capsule that contained fecal microbiome every week. This fecal microbiome was obtained from non-obese, healthy individuals. At the end of the study, these obese adolescents showed a reduction of fat mass after 26 weeks of the intervention. Also, participants who had metabolic syndrome had a significant faster resolution of the condition when compared to placebo (Leong et al., 2020).

Our microbiome can dictate our metabolism. This is how incredibly potent it is. For this reason, we need to take care of our gut bacteria and feed it healthy food, enough prebiotics, and limit the consumption of toxins, alcohol, antibiotics and pro-inflmmatory foods that can harm it.

References:

Leong, K. S. W., Jayasinghe, T. N., Wilson, B. C., Derraik, J. G. B., Albert, B. B., Chiavaroli, V., Svirskis, D. M., Beck, K. L., Conlon, C. A., Jiang, Y., Schierding, W., Vatanen, T., Holland, D. J., O’Sullivan, J. M., & Cutfield, W. S. (2020). Effects of Fecal Microbiome Transfer in Adolescents With Obesity: The Gut Bugs Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA network open, 3(12), e2030415.