Single Gut Bacteria Dose Offers Lasting Metabolic Benefits in Obese Adolescents

6 days ago
2 min read

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A revolutionary study from the University of Auckland has revealed that a single capsule of healthy gut bacteria can provide significant and long-term metabolic benefits in obese adolescents, even without substantial weight loss. Published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, these findings suggest a promising future for the treatment of obesity and its complications.

Eight years ago, 87 obese adolescents participated in a groundbreaking study to evaluate whether fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), which involves administering "good" gut bacteria from healthy donors in capsule form to individuals with a less healthy microbiome, could improve their health and weight. Four years after the initial intervention, a detailed follow-up study showed that adolescents who received the transplant had a reduced risk of developing metabolic changes that typically lead to heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, compared to the group that received a placebo.

Although the treatment group did not experience statistically significant weight loss, what was notable was that they did not gain weight, unlike the placebo group. In fact, the treated group was, on average, 11 kg lighter than the placebo group after four years, although this was not considered statistically significant. Professor Wayne Cutfield of the University of Auckland’s Liggins Institute highlighted the dramatic impact on metabolic syndrome. This syndrome is defined as a cluster of five conditions (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, a large waist circumference, elevated triglycerides, and low HDL cholesterol) that increase the risk of death from heart disease or stroke by two times and the risk of type 2 diabetes by five times. More than one in three of the original teenage participants in the study had metabolic syndrome.

A crucial finding of the follow-up study was that the healthy bacteria introduced were still present and thriving in the participants' guts four years after the single transplant. This discovery challenges previous assumptions about the longevity of therapeutic microbiome alterations. Professor Justin O'Sullivan noted that this "really makes us think about the timeframes over which we look for the impacts of microbiome-based treatments".

This advance lays the groundwork for the development of next-generation probiotics that could "program" the microbiome to reduce the risk of conditions before they manifest. The commercialization of a custom-designed "super mix" of bacteria to prevent or moderate metabolic syndrome is the ultimate goal, and the Liggins Institute is already working on its production and trial.

Adolescent obesity is a growing global public health problem, often extending into adulthood and increasing the risk of various metabolic diseases. Probiotics, defined as live microorganisms beneficial to host health, can influence obesity by regulating the balance of the gut microbiota, reducing chronic inflammation, and modulating lipid metabolism. While clinical evidence on probiotics in adolescents has shown mixed results and limitations in sample size and intervention duration in many clinical trials, the present study underscores the potential of microbiome-based interventions to generate a lasting impact on health.