How Intestinal Bacteria May Make You Fat

[Raistlin]

The grapefruit diet, the Atkins diet, low-fat diets, low-carb diets, the cabbage-soup diet: they and all the other fad diets make the health establishment roll its collective eyes. The only way to lose weight, says every reputable textbook and medical society, is to burn more calories than you consume. And if you are adding pounds, the reason is, pure and simple, that you are consuming more calories than you expend. Weight gain is a straightforward matter of calories in minus calories out, they maintain.

But while the basic math is right, the meaning of “calories in” isn’t what we’ve been taught, according to a growing pile of studies of chubby mice, obese people, svelte mice, and slim people. The calories that matter are not simply the number printed on grocery items, fast-food menus, and those guilt-inducing signs next to Starbucks’ brownies. The calories that count are those extracted by your digestive enzymes and—as more and more research is showing—the trillions of bacteria in your intestine. People whose gut bacteria are better at digesting fats and carbs than their neighbor’s will absorb all 1,500 calories in a Friendly’s Ultimate Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt, while the neighbor will absorb fewer. So even in people with identical metabolisms, the effects of eating identical foods can be different.

The bacteria-made-me-fat idea has been gathering steam since 2006. In that year, Jeffrey Gordon of Washington University and colleagues reported in a paper in Nature that obese mice and slim mice have different populations of gut bacteria. Crucially, they showed that the bacteria caused obesity, rather than obesity producing a specific mix of bacteria. When the scientists plucked bacteria called Firmicutes from obese mice, then put them in the bacteria-free guts of mice raised in a sterile environment, the latter bulked up within 10 to 14 days—even though they ate less.

Why? Firmicutes, it seems, are more adept at liberating calories from food than are bacteria from the other common lineage, Bacteroidetes. Firmicutes can digest complex sugars that neither the mice’s own enzymes nor Bacteroidetes can, breaking them into simple sugars and fatty acids that the mice’s intestines then absorb and turn into more mouse. People harbor bacteria from these same two lineages, with the obese among us having more Firmicutes and fewer Bacteroidetes than slim people, exactly as in fat and lean mice. When Gordon’s team had 12 obese people follow either a low-fat or a low-carb diet to lose weight, the result was more Bacteroidetes and fewer Firmicutes—the profile of slim people. The more Bacteroidetes, the more weight the volunteers lost.

[Bizarra]

So, that's your excuse & you're sticking to it? <_<

Beer , Burgers & chips have nothing to do with it ? :lol2:

[Raistlin]

I always have my five a day....

[Bizarra]

I always have my five a day....

Must be cheating & using a Love Potion <_< :hokus-pokus: I'm quite satisfied with one a week

Stage 1 ... Triweekly,

Stage 2....Try weekly

Stage 3.....Try weakly

Isn't English a complicated & subtle language :D

[Raistlin]

A better hit rate than Kynan's Bi-Annual

[bothwell_buyer]

does this also have anything to do with going blind? (I'm not blind, but want to make sure I eat the correct micro-bodies from the local Fishing Tackle shop.)

[Raistlin]

does this also have anything to do with going blind? (I'm not blind, but want to make sure I eat the correct micro-bodies from the local Fishing Tackle shop.)

I thought the Scots were a lost cause ... :D

[Bizarra]

does this also have anything to do with going blind? (I'm not blind, but want to make sure I eat the correct micro-bodies from the local Fishing Tackle shop.)

I thought the Scots were a lost cause ... :D

Whew! At least the Irish got off Scot free

[Raistlin]

does this also have anything to do with going blind? (I'm not blind, but want to make sure I eat the correct micro-bodies from the local Fishing Tackle shop.)

I thought the Scots were a lost cause ...

Whew! At least the Irish got off Scot free

As we all do

[bothwell_buyer]

does this also have anything to do with going blind? (I'm not blind, but want to make sure I eat the correct micro-bodies from the local Fishing Tackle shop.)

I thought the Scots were a lost cause ...

Whew! At least the Irish got off Scot free

As we all do

all do what?

[Bizarra]

does this also have anything to do with going blind? (I'm not blind, but want to make sure I eat the correct micro-bodies from the local Fishing Tackle shop.)

I thought the Scots were a lost cause ...

Whew! At least the Irish got off Scot free

As we all do

all do what?

Get born, grow up. pay taxes, Die

[Raistlin]

I told you I'm not dying, I'm just changing state

[Bizarra]

I told you I'm not dying, I'm just changing state

Bad news for you, then :(

1/2 your seraglio won't be allowed across State lines with you

[Raistlin]

That's OK I'll get new ones

[Bizarra]

That's OK I'll get new ones

Cock sure, aren't we ?

[Raistlin]

Should I SPELL it out

[Bizarra]

Should I SPELL it out

NO ! Lets have a laugh! Wait for Kynan to come on line

[Raistlin]

Top Tip for Kynan:

Try deliberately spelling words wrong,

This way, at least you have a chance of spelling them correctly...

Kynan gives us technical advice and photograph's.

Please can someone return the favour by giving him irony and spelling skills.

[Raistlin]

OMG, I just heard that Kynan has broken his neck,

He allegedly fell off a ladder,

While he was attempting to reach puberty...

[Bizarra]

OMG, I just heard that Kynan has broken his neck,

He allegedly fell off a ladder,

While he was attempting to reach puberty...

Lucky that no one was around :o I burst out laughing at that

[Raistlin]

I aim to please, A thousand Asian hotties can't be wrong...

[Bizarra]

I aim to please, A thousand Asian hotties can't be wrong...

You are just plain greedy

[Raistlin]

There's nothing plain about me :D

[Bizarra]

There's nothing plain about me :D

You said it Condemned out of your own mouth :fishyface:

That only leaves you as being a Fancy Man

[Raistlin]

That because I like the odd glass of Bourbon (Biscuit joke)