Mice Slim Down After Eating Thin People's Bacteria

A tantalizing new study has found that mice which eat bacteria from thin people's guts,well, slim down, too.

It's not quite as simple as it sounds (it's actually quite gross), but the mice were fed feces, which contain the bacteria inside our guts, from both thin and fat people.  Amazingly, those who were fed feces from thin people grew thin, and from fat, chunked up.

Researchers conducted the experiment with feces from twins, one fat and one thin.  Much to their surprise, the mice getting the thin twin's bacteria got thin, and from the fat twin, well, you know the rest.

Gina Kolata, who wrote the story, theorizes that this bacteria, from digested food contained within us, may also contain the answer to whether we will be fat, or thin.

She quotes Michael Fischbach of the University of California, San Francisco (who was not involved with the study), as “the clearest evidence to date that gut bacteria can help cause obesity.” He added, "I’m very excited about this,” telling Kolata the next step will be "to try using gut bacteria to treat obesity by transplanting feces from thin people."
Now, I don't know about you but I don't want to be thin that bad!
Still, some questions remain, one of the most pressing, how to take the bacteria out of waste so that people can be injected with just that.
But this may be truly good news for those who are obese.  As Kolata explains,"with the right diet, it might be possible to change the bacteria in a fat person’s gut so that they promote leanness rather than obesity. The investigators discovered that given a chance, and in the presence of a low-fat diet, bacteria from a lean twin will take over the gut of a mouse that already had bacteria from a fat twin. The fat mouse then loses weight. But the opposite does not happen. No matter what the diet, bacteria from a fat mouse do not take over in a mouse that is thin."
I still believe we're a ways away from this.  But it sure sounds better than Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers.  Maybe.




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