7 Science Secrets About Bacteria and Weight · PDF file · 2015-10-23UBIOME—7...

7 Science SecretsAbout Bacteriaand Weight Loss

UBIOME—7 SCIENCE SECRETS ABOUT BACTERIA AND WEIGHT LOSS

ContentsWhy 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


Hello!

3

What if your weight didn’t onlydepend on what you eat and theamount of exercise you do?

What if there was another factorat play? A factor that might bestopping you from losing weight nomatter how little you eat, or howmuch exercise you do?

Enter the human microbiome.Over the past ten years science

has begun to investigate the richlydiverse community of bacteria,known as the microbiome, that eachand every one of us carries in andon our bodies.

Your microbiome contains tentimes more cells than you have inyour whole body, and it accounts forsomewhere around three to sixpounds of your total weight.

Your bacteria perform all sortsof vital jobs. For example they helpyour gut digest foods that it wouldn’totherwise be able to digest. Otherbacteria enable your body tosynthesize vitamins.

However, less benign microbesmay play a part in all sorts of healthconditions, some of them veryserious, such as Celiac disease;inflammatory bowel disease (IBD),including both Crohn’s disease and

ulcerative colitis; irritable bowelsyndrome (IBS); esophageal refluxand esophageal cancer; Clostridiumdifficile infection; colorectal cancer;and liver and biliary tract diseases.

This ebook, though, focuses onyet another aspect of yourphysiology in which your bacteriaplay a part, and that’s your weight.

For years it was believed that anindividual’s body weight was solelydriven by the caloric value of thefood they ate and the amount ofphysical exercise they did.

However this didn’t seem toallow for the fact that some peoplestay lean whatever they eat andhowever little they exercise, whileothers appear to put on weight (orbe unable to lose it) even on strictdieting and exercise regimes.

However, new research suggeststhat the types of bacteria in the gutcan play a big part in weight loss orgain.

As research on the humanmicrobiome is ongoing and rapidlydeveloping, it would be just aboutimpossible to produce an up-to-datebook covering the world of weightand bacteria in its entirety, but forus three important things stood out:

The book aims to address this,getting the latest information intoyour hands. We hope you find ithelpful!

The uBiome Team

Please note: This book is not intended as asubstitute for the medical advice ofphysicians. The reader should regularlyconsult a physician in matters relating tohealth and particularly with respect to anysymptoms that may require diagnosis ormedical attention.

Note also that uBiome is not a diagnostictest and cannot predict your future health.If you are concerned about a medical issue,please see your healthcare provider.

1. Many people (perhapsincluding you?) would like tolose weight.

2. There are many scientificstudies which suggest linksbetween the microbiomeand weight loss.

3. It can often take a longtime for scientific findings tomake it into the mainstream.


Overweightpeople haveless bacterialvariety

1.

4

Let’s begin with a fascinatingexperiment that was done atWashington University in St Louisin 2013. When bacteria from obesehumans was transplanted intomice that had been specially bredto be germ-free, the mice startedputting on weight.

The study recruited pairs ofhuman female twins in which onewoman was obese, while the otherwas lean.

So-called “humanized mice”(mice which carry functioninghuman genes, cells, and tissuesare often used in scientificresearch) had their guts populatedwith microbes from either the leanor obese sister.

Although the mice thenreceived the same amount of food,those which had been givenbacteria from the obese twin puton more body weight and grewheavier than the mice thatreceived the flora of the leanwoman.

Furthermore, the fatter micewere found to have a less diversemicrobial gut community.

What can we take from thesefindings?

It certainly seems to be thecase that an obese person’smicrobiome differs from that of alean individual, and that bacteriain the gut may play a part inweight gain.

While it’s not yet possible toidentify a “fat bacterium”, it’s worthnoting that obese people appearto have less bacterial diversity,suggesting that there could beweight-loss benefits fromintroducing a wider variety ofmicrobes into the gut.

One way this could beachieved is by eating a diverse dietwhich includes fermented foodscontaining live microbes.

While these have to passthrough the strongly acidicconditions of the stomach beforereaching your gut, there is someevidence that a proportion ofthese helpful bacteria will make itthrough.

Fermented foods includesauerkraut, pickles, kefir, liveyoghurt, and kimchi. Yum!


Eat beans toget bacterialike a skinnyperson

2.

5

Dysbiosis is a term which isused to describe a microbialimbalance on or inside the humanbody.

The bacteria in your gut playsa vital part in your health and well-being, but problems can resultwhen this careful balance isdisturbed.

For example, the two mostuseful bacteria “phyla” areFirmicutes and Bacteroidetes.

Phyla?Phyla is the plural of phylum,

which in biology means thetaxonomic (naming) rank belowkingdom and above class.

One way to make sense of thisis to consider animals. Thekingdom would be Animalia.

One class could be Mammalia(mammals).

In between these comes thephylum Chordata, which meansanimals with backbones.

Back in the land of bacteria,the equivalent to kingdom wouldbe Eubacteria and the phyla inquestion are, as we said,Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes.

If it sounds complicated toyou, you’re not the only one.

For now, however, let’s justfocus on the ratio of Firmicutes toBacteroidetes.

Obese individuals have fewerBacteroidetes and more Firmicutesthan their lean equivalents: we’reback to dysbiosis again.

Something intriguing happenswhen the gut becomes imbalancedin this way: the gut actuallybecomes more efficient atextracting energy from food.

When the microbiomes of miceare changed in this way, tilting thebacterial balance in favour ofFirmicutes, they absorb morecalories even though they eat thesame amount of food.

This could be highly significant.Anecdotally, we’ve probably all

known people who can apparentlyeat trayloads of cake withoutputting on a pound, and it may bethat this ability to consumewithout gaining weight could beexplained in part by having moreBacteroidetes in the gut.

Can this be hacked?Is it possible to increase your

Bacteroidetes levels?

One way could be to eatmore beans, a great sourceof dietary fiber, becausebacteroidetes just love fiber.


Meat thatcontainsantibioticscan lead toweight gain

3.

6

Antibiotics are incredible, life-saving medicines.

Today, however, overuse ofthem is a major cause for concern.

When antibiotics are overused,their effectiveness decreases, asbugs learn to adapt to them, andthey can also wipe out the gut’shealthy bacteria.

But there may also be aconnection between the use ofantibiotics and obesity, which isperhaps not so surprising whenyou stop to think that antibioticshave been used to promotegrowth in the livestock industry, apractice the Centers for DiseaseControl has condemned as notnecessary, by the way.

If antibiotics can fatten a cowor chicken, why wouldn’t they havea similar effect on a human?

Actually they do, andexperiments have shown this to beso. For instance a 1954 study fed adaily diet of antibiotics to severalhundred Navy recruits for sevenweeks.

The result?The antibiotic-dosed recruits

gained more weight than a controlgroup.

Unfortunately antibiotics canend up in humans even when theyhaven’t been prescribed.

This happens through thesimple process of eating meatfrom animals that have been givenantibiotics as a growth agent.

Weight gain can occur even atthese low levels of exposure.

In a study at the New YorkUniversity School of Medicine,researchers injected mice with a“subtherapeutic antibiotictreatment” (antibiotics at a levellow enough to have no healthbenefits) containing the same lowdose of antibiotics thathumans oftenunknowingly consume inanimal meat.

Over time the resultwas that these micebecame fat, despiteeating the same amount

of calories as mice in a controlgroup.

What to make of this?While it’s not always easy to

know whether the meat you’reeating contains antibiotics, manysupermarkets do label productshelpfully.

Look for “Antibiotic-Free” forexample.

A crowd-sourced websiteat realtimefarms.com/fixantibiotics shows retailers,farmers’ markets, andeateries which sell meatwithout antibiotics.

Bon appetit!


Cut yourrisk of Type 2diabetesby boostingbacterialdiversity

4.

7

Lots of microbiome-relatedstudies are based on mice. There’snothing wrong with that, unless ofcourse you’re a mouse.

It wasn’t always so but in factthese days lab mice get treatedpretty humanely.

However it’s always nice tocome across a good gut bacteriaexperiment carried out on humansubjects, and for this particularone we have the Danes to thank.

In a paper published in Naturein August 2013, an internationalteam of researchers examinedstool samples from 123 lean and169 obese Danish adults.

What did they learn? For astart, individuals with less diversityof bacteria in their microbiomeswere more likely to suffer frominflammation, and also to showgreater resistance to insulin.

Insulin resistance can lead tohigh blood sugar and mayultimately contribute to adiagnosis of Type 2 diabetes.

The study also found thatamong the obese participants,those who had a low diversity ofgut bacteria gained substantiallymore weight over a nine yearperiod.

If your goal is to increase thediversity of your own gut bacteria,experts suggest a number of waysto do so that.

One is to stop over-doingthings with personal cleanliness.

Soap and water now and thenare fine, but by depending onhand-sanitizer at multiple pointsevery day we may be denying ourbodies exposure to a wideassortment of microbes, many ofwhich could actually do us good.

Another way to up yourmicrobial diversity is to eatfermented foods (probiotics) on aregular basis – things like pickledveggies, kombucha, kimchi andsauerkraut.

When you do, accompanythem with the type of fiber-containing foods (called prebiotics)that provide nourishment for theprobiotics you’re consuming.

Useful foods consideredprebiotics include asparagus,artichokes, onions, garlic,oats, and beans.


Fool yourbrain intobelievingyou’re nothungry

5.

8

Fun Facts

The brain talks to the gut, andthe gut talks back.

Thanks to a remarkable aspectof physiology called the brain-gutaxis, microbes in your gut cansend information to your brainwhich then controls your body’sresponse to insulin, how quicklygastric emptying takes place, andhow full you feel after eating(satiety). All these factors can havean influence on weight gain andobesity.

The gut communicates withthe brain in two ways: through thenervous system (neural pathways)and the endocrine system. Theendocrine system is a network ofglands which controls manyimportant bodily functions byproducing and releasinghormones. Much of the work inthis area has made use of germ-free rats, and as we’ve alreadyshown, experiments on mice andrats pretty much mimic the effectsthat can be expected when thesame investigations are carriedout on humans.

Rodents who were fedsomething called oligofructoseended up with higher levels of

Bifidobacteria in their guts, whichin turn led to increasedfermentation and decreased foodintake, fat mass, and hepaticsteatosis (less fat build-up in theliver). Oligofructose is a dietaryfiber found in vegetables such asonions, bananas, garlic, chicory,and wheat, as well as beingavailable as a supplement.

Manufactured foods such asfrozen desserts, fruit yogurt,cereal, cookies, and dairy productsalso commonly containoligofructose. It acts as a“prebiotic”, providing nutrients forthe good bacteria in your gut.

A small study at the Universityof Louvain, Brussels, Belgium,showed that human participantswho consumed 8 grams of oligo-fructose twice a day (breakfast anddinner time) showed increasedsatiety (they felt fuller) and alsoexperienced reduced hunger,being less likely to wish to eatmore food after dinner.

Since oligofructose passesthrough the body without beingmetabolised, it’s lower in caloriesthan other kinds of carbohydrates.

You may want to try eating

more onions, bananas, garlic,chicory, and wheat, and look foroligofructose supplements. Alsocheck for oligofructose when youbuy manufactured foods such asfrozen desserts, fruit yogurt,cereal, cookies, and dairyproducts.

A Probiotic is a food or dietarysupplement containing livebacteria that replace or add tothe beneficial bacterianormally present in thegastrointestinal tract.

A Prebiotic is a nondigestiblefood ingredient whichpromotes the growth ofbeneficial microorganisms inthe intestines. Prebiotics arelike food for Probiotics.


Taking fibersupplementscan work aswell as fiberfrom food

6.

9

Increasing the amount of fiberin your diet is a good thing formany reasons, but what do you dowhen it’s difficult to makesubstantial changes to what youeat?

Can supplements help?Well, according to research

conducted by a team at theUniversity of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, eating fiber-enrichedsnack bars may do the job almostas well.

Kelly Swanson, a Professor ofnutrition, led a team which workedwith 20 healthy men.

A control group ate a snackbar with no fiber content twice aday for 21 days and a secondgroup consumed snack barscontaining 21 grams ofpolydextrose, a common fiberfood additive.

A third group ate bars with 21grams of soluble corn fiber.

Poop samples drawn from allparticipants before and after theexperiment were subjected to DNAanalysis.

What most surprised theresearchers was a shift in the ratioof two bacterial phyla –Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes –towards more Bacteroidetes andless Firmicutes.

Having more Bacteroidetesmay be beneficial because thehigher its proportion, the leanerthat individual tends to be.

With higher Firmicutes, anindividual is inclined to be obese.

The soluble corn fiber barsoutperformed the polydextroseones very slightly.

Of additional note was the factthat the gut balances of theparticipants returned to normal atthe end of the experiment,strongly suggesting the need tomaintain increased fiberconsumption rather than havingperiodic fiber binges.

Soluble corn fiber is alsoknown as corn syrup (the fiber iswater-soluble), not to be confusedwith high fructose corn syrup inwhich some of corn syrup’sglucose has been enzymaticallyconverted to fructose.

It’s complicated, but in generalterms glucose is better for youthan fructose, even though they’reboth sugars.

Find fiber supplementscontaining polydextrose orsoluble corn fiber.


Stop yourbacteria fromeating yourgut lining

7.

10

A single bacterium is truly asight to behold. Through apowerful microscope you’d seethat most bacteria are one ofthree different shapes. Some arespherical (coccus), others are“rods” which look something likemedication capsules (bacillus),while the third type are spirals –imagine a twisty pig’s tail (spirillus).

And they’re really small. TakeE. coli, for instance. If you were thesize of an amoeba, an E. colibacterium would be about as bigas an ant to you.

Amoebas are tiny themselves,of course. To give you an idea ofscale, though, under the rightconditions they’re sometimes justabout possible to see with theunaided eye.

So what do these minisculecreatures eat? Well, it varies. Somehave extraordinarily weird dietarypreferences. One particular strain,for instance, eats radioactivewaste. Another likes to tuck intosteel. Fortunately the bacteria inyour gut have more conservativetastes. One thing they can’t get

enough of is fiber, which you feedthem whenever you eat wholegrains, legumes (beans etc), fruit,and vegetables.

Eating fiber keeps your bowelmovements regular and also helpsyou feel full after a meal, making itless likely that you’ll overeat. But italso plays a vital part in keepingyour gut bacteria healthy.

Without it, your bacteria maystart seriously misbehaving.

Researchers at the Universityof Michigan Medical Schooldiscovered that the microbes ofmice who were fed a fiber-freediet began to eat away at the gut’sprotective mucus lining, potentiallytriggering inflammation. Systemicinflammation has importantimplications for many aspects ofhealth, leading to cardiovascularillness, dementia, gastrointestinaldisorders, Type 2 diabetes, andplenty of other conditions. It mayalso be the cause of weight gain.

When inflammation interfereswith the gut barrier (which amongother things keeps pathogens outof the bloodstream), bacteria-

derived toxins are able to get in tothe bloodstream. A breached gutbarrier can also lead to adiposity,where fat gets stored in your fattytissues, and weight gain.

Most adults in the West eat fartoo little fiber. The Institute ofMedicine recommends thatwomen should get 25 grams perday and men should consume 38grams, but the average daily intakeis just 15 grams. Eating fiber aspart of a weight-managementprogram makes a lot of sense.

Check labels in the store,and add whole grains, beans,peas, fruits, and vegetableswhenever possible.


Pulling it alltogether

11

1 Increase your gut’s bacterialdiversity by eating fermented foodslike sauerkraut, pickles, kefir, liveyogurt, and kimchi.

2 Avoid meats containing antibiotics,which can lead to weight gain.

3 Eating more dietary fiber, such asbeans, can give you the microbiomeof a skinnier person.

4 Feed the bacteria in fermentedfoods by eating prebiotics likeasparagus, artichokes, onions,garlic, and oats.

5 When you shop for manufacturedfoods like frozen desserts, fruityogurt, cereal, cookies, and dairyproducts, look for a prebiotic calledoligofructose.

6 If you choose a fiber supplement itcan help to look for one containingpolydextrose or soluble corn fiber.

7 Avoid inflammation by eating avariety of fiber-rich foods such aswholegrains, peas, fruits,vegetables, and (of course) beans,whenever possible.

Here’s what we know about bacteria and weight loss. Why not print this page andpost it in your kitchen as a reminder?


Who isuBiome?

12

uBiome is the leadingmicrobial genomics company. Itwas founded in 2012 by UCSFscientists and technologists fromStanford and Cambridge after acrowd-funding campaign raisedmore than $350,000 from citizenscientists, triple its initial goal.uBiome is now backed byAndreessen Horowitz,Y Combinator, and other leadinginvestors. The company’s missionis to use big data to understandthe human microbiome by givingconsumers the power to learnabout their bodies, performexperiments, and see how currentresearch studies apply to them.

How It Works

1. Sample Your Microbiome

A uBiome kit containseverything you need to swab andsubmit your microbiome sample.Whether for your mouth, ears,nose, gut, or genitals, your kit willallow you to learn more about thebacteria in your body. You justswipe the sample swab back andforth across the corresponding siteand send the kit back to us.

2. Answer a Simple Survey

Our online survey lets youanswer questions about yourhealth and lifestyle. Then you cansee how you correlate with others.We tell you how you match up toother users, to existing peer-reviewed studies, and to yourprevious samples.

We Get Up Close and PersonalWith Your Samples

uBiome is a microbiomesequencing service that providesinformation and tools for you toexplore your microbiome. Basedon research from the NIH HumanMicrobiome Project, we'veperfected the technology toperform large-scale microbiomestudies. Once we receive yoursample, it goes in the lab and themagic happens.

What Happens In The Lab

1. Sequence

We extract the bacterial DNAout of the sample you’ve sent us.Then we read the DNA sequences.It’s a little like dusting a scene forfingerprints.

2. AnalyzeWe compare the ‘fingerprints’

we find to our bacterial referencelibrary, to determine whichbacteria they came from.

3. Compile Your ResultsWe make your results easy to

understand. You can compareyour graphs to those of othergroups: vegetarians, people onantibiotics, or athletes, forexample.

Get your microbiome tested now!www.ubiome.com

Even better, get 10% off byentering the discount code:SECRETSCIENCE7


References

13

Antibiotics in early life alter murine colonic microbiome and adiposityhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22914093

Brain–Gut–Microbe Communication in Health and Diseasehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232439/

Build A Better Microbiome – 7 Ways to Embrace More Microbeshttp://www.drfranklipman.com/build-a-better-microbiome/

Diet, gut microbiota and immune responses – Nature Immunologyhttp://www.nature.com/articles/ni0111-5.epdf

Fat-Fighting Bacteria Show the Microbiome’s Therapeutic Potentialhttp://www.technologyreview.com/news/536376/microbes-engineered-to-prevent-obesity/

Fix Antibioticshttp://www.realtimefarms.com/fixantibiotics

Genetically Altered Bacteria Prevent Mice From Getting Fat – PopularSciencehttp://www.popsci.com/article/science/genetically-altered-bacteria-prevent-mice-getting-fat

How Gut Bacteria Help Make Us Fat and Thin – Scientific Americanhttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-make-us-fat-and-thin/

How the gut’s “microbiome” affects weight gain – CBS Newshttp://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-guts-microbiome-affects-weight-gain/

How You Can Help Prevent Antibiotic Resistancehttp://www.healthline.com/health/antibiotics/how-you-can-help-prevent-resistance

Influence of intestinal microbiota on body weight gainhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25511750

Intestinal microbiota during infancy and its implicationshttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Reinhardt+C,+Reigstad+CS,+Backhed+F.+Intestinal+microbiota+during+infancy+and+its+implications+for+obesity.+Journal+of+Pediatric+Gastroenterology+and+Nutrition+2009;48:249%E2%80%9356.

JCI – Incorporation of therapeutically modified bacteria into gutmicrobiota inhibits obesityhttp://www.jci.org/articles/view/72517

Obesity and Overweight – Achieving Permanent Weight Losshttp://raphaelkellmanmd.com/specialties/obesity-overweight/

Obesity via Microbe Transplants – The Scientist Magazinehttp://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/37367/title/Obesity-via-Microbe-Transplants/

Obesity, Bariatrics and the Microbiomehttp://www.laparoscopic.md/bariatric/microbiome

Oligofructose promotes satiety in healthy human – a pilot studyhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16340949

On communication between gut microbes and the brainhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23010679

Richness of human gut microbiome correlates with metabolic markershttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7464/full/nature12506.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20130829

Shift in gut bacteria observed in fiber supplement studyhttp://news.aces.illinois.edu/news/shift-gut-bacteria-observed-fiber-supplement-study-may-offer-good-news-weight-loss

The Fat Drug – The New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fat-drug.html?_r=0

The Gut Microbiome Influences Whether Or Not You’re Fathttp://science.time.com/2013/08/29/you-are-your-bacteria-how-the-gut-microbiome-influences-health/

The Role of the Gut Microbiomehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030605/

Weight Gain After Fecal Microbiota Transplantationhttp://ofid.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/ofv004.full.pdf+html

Western diet destroys healthy bacteria – The Timeshttp://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4459954.ece

What Is the Difference Between Sucrose, Glucose & Fructose?http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/difference-between-sucrose-glucose-fructose-8704.html

Why Your Gut Microbiome Could Hold the Key to Solving Obesityhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerard-e-mullin-md/gut-microbiome_b_7548632.html

7 Science Secrets About Bacteria and Weight · PDF file · 2015-10-23UBIOME—7...

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