Effect of diet on the intestinal flora

Washington [US], June 24 (ANI): Charite Researchers-University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Francisco show for the first time that a very low-calorie diet significantly alters the composition of the microflora present in the human gut. It was. I was able to do it.

A study published in a Journal Nature publication reported that dieting increased Clostridium difficile associated with certain bacteria, especially antibiotic-induced diarrhea and colitis.

These bacteria clearly affect the body’s energy balance by affecting the absorption of nutrients from the intestines.

The human intestinal flora is composed of trillions of microorganisms and varies from person to person. For example, people who are overweight or obese are known to have different compositions than people of normal weight. Many of us try to lose weight at some point in our lives.

But how do these dramatic changes in eating habits affect our bodies? An international team of researchers co-led by Charite is working on this issue. “For the first time, we were able to show that a very low-calorie diet can lead to significant changes in the composition of the gut microbiota, and these changes affect the energy balance of the host,” said Professor Joachim Spranger. Stated. I. He is a professor of endocrine and metabolic disorders in Charite and one of the lead authors of the study.

To investigate the effects of the diet, the team surveyed 80 elderly (postmenopausal) women who weighed from slightly overweight to severe obesity for 16 weeks. Women followed a medically supervised dietary exchange regime, consuming a total of less than 800 calories of shakes daily or maintaining weight during the study.

Participants were tested at the Experimental Clinical Research Center (ECRC), a facility jointly run by Charite and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC). Regular stool sample analysis showed that the diet reduced the number of microbes present in the gut and altered the composition of the gut microbiota.

“We were able to observe how bacteria adapt their metabolism to absorb more sugar molecules, thereby making them unavailable to human hosts.” Hungry microbial flora. “We It can be said that the development was observed. The lead author of the study, Dr. Reiner Jumpertz von Schwartzenberg, is a researcher and clinician in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolic Disorders and is funded by the Clinician Scientist Program run by Charite and the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH).

As a result of transferring fecal samples collected before and after feeding to sterile mice, the intestinal flora was completely deficient. The result was excellent. Animals given postprandial feces lost more than 10 percent of their body weight. The pre-diet stool had no effect.

“Our results show that this phenomenon is mainly explained by changes in the absorption of nutrients from the animal’s gut,” said Professor Spranger. “This highlights the fact that gut bacteria have a significant impact on food absorption,” he added. This microbe is commonly found in the natural environment and in the intestines of healthy humans and animals, but the use of antibiotics can increase the number of microbes in the intestine and cause severe inflammation of the intestinal wall. ..

It is also known as one of the most common in-hospital pathogens. Elevated bacterial levels were seen in both participants who completed the weight loss regimen and mice that received postprandial gut bacteria.

“C. Difficile usually produces a toxin associated with this bacterium, which may be shown to be a condition for animal weight loss,” explained Professor Spranger. “Even though neither the participants nor the animals showed any associated signs of intestinal inflammation,” he added. To summarize the results of the study, Professor Spranger said: Colonization resistance of the in-hospital bacterium Clostridium difficile These changes efficiently absorb nutrients throughout the intestine without causing associated clinical symptoms. The results of the current study, also funded by the German Cardiovascular Disease Center (DZHK), may even create treatment options for metabolic disorders. Obesity and diabetes. For this reason, researchers are investigating how gut bacteria are affected and have a beneficial effect on the weight and metabolism of human hosts. (ANI)