Last Thursday in a comment on Edward's diary on a new report that cdkipp pointed us to earlier that day I also made a comment related to a new study on bacteria in our gut. That article is from Washngton University in St Louis at a large research clinic at the hospital. The title to the LA Times article reads "High-fat, High-Sugar Diet alters bacteria in the gut, making weight gain easier."
Join me below to look at the implications for this new study.
WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
Scheduled WHEE Diaries
November 16
Mon PM - Brimi
November 17
Tues AM - ???
Tues PM - Clio2 (Kessler, Ch. 24)
November 18
Wed AM - Chico David RN
Wed PM - ???
November 19
Thurs AM - Ed G
Thurs PM - ???
November 20
Fri AM - ???
Fri PM - ???
November 21
Sat AM - ???
Sat PM - Edward Spurlock (Kessler, Ch. 25)
November 22
Sun AM - Turtle Diary Hiatus (going out of town) - need a volunteer!
Sun PM - Wee Mama hosts Holiday Fit Club this Sunday evening
November 23
Mon AM - NC Dem
Mon PM - ???
What did this study reveal?
The nutritional value of food is influenced in part by a person’s gut microbial community (microbiota) and its component genes (microbiome).
This actually builds upon the study that cdkipp pointed us to that indicated that a "calorie in minus calorie expended" gives us a simple formula for weight gain or loss. We have all used this catch phrase and it is still probably 98-99% correct. We know this as the First Law of Thermodynamics. It works except when the Second Law of Thermodynamics interfers. The Second Law bascially says that when the conversion is " a real irreversible change", then there will be a slight increase in entropy and balance is not expected.
The study on thermodynamics is actually from 2004. It looked at the micronutrients in a diet and saw that the balance of micronutrients effected the final weight loss. I think we all knew that. The problem is that we just don't agree on which micronutrients are the most important to weight loss. Otherwise, there would not be so damn many weight loss books on the market about Holiday Season.
In the study led by Jeffrey I Gordan at the Gordon Labs, his team of scientist have been working for over a decade on the microbial community that is in the human intestines. We know that a large portion of our digestion occurs in the stomach. The different acids of the stomach attack the food and begin the breakdown. However, it can't all be passed into the blood stream from the stomach.
In the intestines, our body uses bacteria primarily to complete the breakdown to useable components. The bacteria in the gut is composed of two major phyla. The Firmicutes are evidently very efficient at breaking down the remaining foods and passing it through our blood system to be used by our cells for energy. The Bacteroidetes also make up a huge portion of the gut bacteria but they are less efficient at converting the foods in the intestines to a useable mixture. Thus these foods are passed through your system as waste and not converted to fat, amino acids or sugars.
Thus one can see that if we have more Firmicutes in the gut, our bodies would extract more calories from the food into our bodies. For most of us, that would be a bad thing. Again, this connects to the second law of thermodynamics. A calorie in is not really a calorie unless your gut is almost completely Firmicutes controlled.
Previous studies have confirmed that when a new child is born, they have an almost identical ratios of Firmicutes and Bacteriodetes as the mother. Thus the power of genetics steps in not with what is in our cell structure but what bacteria we inherit. Please understand that we have more bacteria in our bodies than we have cells. Estimates run from 10 to 100 Trillion bacteria in our bodies.
Working with mice that are sterile with absolutely no bacteria in their intestines, the Gordan Labs have confirmed that if they place a culture with predominately Bacteroidetes into the gut of the sterile mice and feed then a low fat low sugar diet, these mice maintain their weight. If they lower the calorie input slightly, they also begin to loose weight just like we should. Except all of us don't!
When they place a culture of predominately Firmicutes bacteria into the gut of the sterile mice and feed them a low fat, low sugar diet, these mice still gain weight. Why? The Firmicutes bacteria are more efficient at converting the nutrients and thus more of the material stays in the body. The weight gain is slight but like humans, there is a perceptable gain over time.
When they feed these same mice on a high fat, high sugar (read Western Diet) diet, the weight gain is much sharper and more pronounced. It would be like gaining 20 pounds a year for a human. I think we all knew this would happen, right?
Now, here is the kicker for the study. If the mice that have predominately a culture of Bacteriodetes in its gut is fed a Western Diet, they saw a sudden change in the flora of the gut within 24 hours. Yes, it changed just that quickly. Now, I spoke with a science writer for the Gordan Labs last Friday and she confirmed for me that the diet was like a fat concentration of 80% with the remainder in sugar. Not many of us eat this way. But the key is that our gut bacteria moves this quickly in this direction. That is the "bad" direction.
For me the logical question becomes... "Can this process be reversed?"
When I ask the writer for Gordan Labs, she was more reserved. The experiments are on going and she didn't want to release information until the complete data was collected. I then ask her if the observations had begun at the same time and she confirmed that they had. This means to me that the reversal is possible but it takes a much longer time to make the change back if it is indeed possible.
I had many other questions and she suggested that I email one of Gordon's top research assistants and partners in the lab. My question centered around if this happens so quickly in one direction but we are not even positive that it can be reversed with a very strict low fat low sugar diet, then how do so many people stay lean. Her response was that just as this experiment was using only one specific breed of mice, it didn't include all types as our human society does. Thus there may be mice breeds that have a more resistent culture and the change in gut flora may be slower or there may be a small segment that have other factors at work and will never change over.
This Gordon Lab is also doing some major work on malnourishment in third world nations with some very substantial funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Think about it for a minute. There may be bacteria at work in the intestines of malnourished humans that resists conversion to calories in the body even if the level of food consumption is increased. Again, think about the fact that our bodies have 10 times more bacteria than we have cells. The human body is an amazing machine.
Have a great week!