

Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice - not_that_noob
http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ismej2012153a.html

======
splatcollision
Gut bacteria are an extremely powerful system within our bodies and are mostly
still mysterious to us. Imbalances of one type or another lead to large
amounts of bacterial toxins being introduced to the intestine and the
bloodstream, with wide-ranging mental and physical effects. I'm not surprised
that contribution to obesity is among them.

It works kind of like this:

You eat too much refined/processed food, that is high in sugars of any kind,
especially complex polysaccharides and the food is not fully digested by your
stomach + small intestine, and ends up in your large intestine. This surplus
of sugars provides abundant food to your billions of gut bacteria, and they
start to grow out of control, and mutate. Those mutated bacteria now dump
their toxic waste by-products into your body.

Following restricted diets that are intended to reduce the food supply to your
gut bacteria colonies is a valid and often the only successful way to treat
the conditions caused by this influx of bacteria and toxins.

Antibiotics of any kind are simply too broad a weapon - they will attempt to
eliminate everything which will result in other imbalances. The food we eat
every day is the most important factor for intestinal and therefore overall
health...

[1] This book is helpful: <http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info>

~~~
jonnathanson
Tangential, but: is the whole obsession with fiber a bit misguided? If
polysaccharides are largely responsible for feeding gut bacteria (good and
bad), and your link recommends cutting them out, then by definition, we should
be cutting out dietary fibers (most of which are polysaccharides). Fiber is
mostly undigestible in our stomachs and upper GI tracts, but is readily
fermented by (and feeds) intestinal bacteria.

Or am I missing something here? Someone with a bit more knowledge of organic
chemistry and biology can feel free to chime in here.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
The fiber helps your bowels work correctly. We were not created to evacuate
bricks. You don't need a PhD in organic chemistry and biology to understand
that, just experience with babies.

~~~
jonnathanson
Well, yes and no. A lot of cultures live almost exclusively on carnivorous
diets, in which vegetable fiber is extremely rare (if eaten at all). Evidently
the fats in the diet serve as lubricants in the absence of the mechanical
action that fibers serve in the intestines.

I'm not disputing that fibers help "push things along" by absorbing water,
adding bulk, etc. But are we overeating them? Do we really need to be making a
conscious effort to add or supplement them in our diets?

FWIW: I'm not pushing some sort of anti-fiber claim or agenda here. I'm
neutral on the subject. I'm simply inquiring.

~~~
Mz
I think that depends in part on who your ancestors are -- I.e. do you have
genes from a carnivorous culture?

My exhusband is part Viking, basically. They ate a lot of meat, in part
because they lived so far north that you couldn't grow enough plantbased
foods. My ex ate a very high meat diet. Our sons eat less meat than he did,
but they are 1/4 Norwegian whereas he is 1/2. Still, they tolerate more meat
in their diet than I do. I am convinced there is a genetic component here.

(Yes I know: Anecdotal and all that.)

~~~
gte910h
The vikings actually were mostly crop farmers. Due to the weird way Caribbean
waters flow up through the Atlantic and past Brittian.

<http://www.danishnet.com/info.php/vikings/farming-152.html>

~~~
Mz
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that Vikings only ate meat. Just that they
appear to have eaten a lot more meat than most other Europeans (I am mostly
German and Irish in ancestory). That isn't inconsistent with my point that
genes likely influence one's tolerance in this regard.

Even the site you link to talks about lamb and other meat being a regular part
of the Viking diet. In Europe, the children's rhyme "peas porridge hot, peas
porridge cold" refers to the common practice of serving some sort of hot meal
at lunch and cold leftovers at dinner. Peas porridge was likely either
vegetarian or had very little meat in it. When I had some poetry class in
college, it pointed out that "Greasy Jane stirs the pot" suggested a servant
in an upper class household preparing a dish containing meat, which was
something of a luxury item. The "greasy" imagery indicates it contained meat.
Peasants could not afford meat on a routine basis. Further back in history,
Romans ate far more eggs than meat.

My ex was a history buff. We talked a fair amount about things like that.

Sorry for the sloppy wording earlier.

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MrGunn
I'd love to see this study enrolled in the Reproducibility Initiative:
<http://reproducibilityinitiative.com>

Strong claims require strong evidence.

------
schoper
ISME Journal.

1\. Two independent facts from the experiment: A pathogen that causes obesity
(in mice) seems to be active in some obese humans.

2\. Severely restricted diet seems to powerfully reduce the population of this
organism.

I doubt that these facts are unrelated. It's classic host-parasite behavior.
The pathogen depends on high calorie intake in its host, and therefore
engineers that behavior (somehow).

Further there is no reason to make the leap that the only or best way to
counter this pathogen is through diet. It's not impossible that a targeted
antibiotic that eliminates this pathogen would have an effect on the body
composition of the host.

~~~
not_that_noob
Very interesting observation re parasitic behavior. I suspect that with modern
food processing techniques to make food relentlessly cheaper, we have
unwittingly enhanced the food supply for the parasite.

~~~
chc
It's not really unwitting. Anything that increases nutrition for humans
necessarily increases the food supply for creatures that prey on humans.
Similarly, boosting the rabbit population enhances the food supply for
creatures that prey on rabbits.

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ChuckMcM
Ok, this is an interesting observation:

 _"After 9 weeks on the WTP diet, this Enterobacter population in the
volunteer's gut reduced to 1.8%, and became undetectable by the end of the
23-week trial"_

So the thesis is that this bacteria lives in obese people's gut, and it makes
them more obese. But once they diet to a point where they are not obese, the
bacteria dies off? I wonder if they are going to try a diet + anti-biotic
treatment, diet + placebo trial on two obese patients to see if it improves
their chances to get back into a regular balance.

~~~
Able7
No antibiotics were involved but the WTP diet consisted of 1344Cal daily diet
of canned porridge (. . ."4 cans of gruel per day" . . .) - Quoted from
'Supplimental Material' to the original study publication
[http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/ism...](http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/ismej2012153x1.pdf).
But, there is absolutely no specific information as to the actual ingredients
of the "porridge/gruel" so there seems to be no way to actually repeat this
research or try the diet individually.

~~~
msarvar
So they basically put him on a strict low calorie diet, and he lost weight? No
way!

~~~
aantix
Please stop oversimplifying. With the existence of the bacteria, mice were
obese. By means of their diet and prebiotics, they were able to reduce the
levels of this bacteria in their subject.

Could be just the caloric deficit, could be the bacteria. It's an interesting
correlation and should be explored further.

------
icey
It paints this animation of the spread of American obesity in a new light:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BRFSS_obesity_1985-2006.gi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BRFSS_obesity_1985-2006.gif)

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
Epidemic?

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patrickgzill
It is interesting to consider that periodic fasts and/or abstaining from
certain foods for a time (such as Lent during the Orthodox calendar), seen in
many religions, might have a health benefit by suppressing certain gut
bacteria, or at least managing gut flora.

~~~
MichaelGG
Is it actually interesting? Even the rules were chosen randomly, you'd expect
any large body of rules to get something by sheer chance alone.

~~~
AutoKorrect
yes, it is interesting. Consider that vitamin C was known to prevent scurvy,
but then that knowledge was lost, and rediscovered later on. How much
knowledge may be codified in ancient customs, and that we might have forgotten
the foundations for that knowledge.

~~~
scott_s
Vitamin C was not known to prevent scurvy. Citrus fruits, which contain
vitamin C, were known to prevent scurvy, but no one knew _why_. They had
theories, but the theories were wrong.

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danesparza
The article is very interesting. I looked, but couldn't find information on
the exact diet of the test subject during the study. Did anybody else have any
better luck?

~~~
gte910h
The supplementary information link at the bottom has a link to the diet and
how it was prepared:

Dietary intervention and sampling. This volunteer was given a diet composed of
whole grains, traditional Chinese medicine and prebiotics (WTP diet) for
intervention. He was given 4 cans of gruel per day as staple food contract
prepared in the form of cooked porridge (370 g wet weight per can) then canned
by a food manufacturer (Shanghai Meilin Meida Food Co., Ltd.) for 23 weeks.
Each can contained 100 g dry ingredients (59 g of carbohydrate, 15 g of
protein, 5 g of fat, and 6 g of fiber) providing 336 kcal energy (70 % of
carbohydrate, 17 % of protein, 13 % of fat). Fresh fecal samples were
collected with 4 or 5 weeks intervals. Whole blood and serum samples were
collected with 0, 9 and 23 week (0d, 9w, 23w). All samples were immediately
frozen on collection and stored at -80 °C for subsequent analysis.

~~~
sixdimensional
Is it just me or isn't that basically what they feed you in the Matrix?

"Tank: Here you go, buddy; 'Breakfast of Champions.' Mouse: If you close your
eyes, it almost feels like you're eating runny eggs. Apoc: Yeah, or a bowl of
snot. Mouse: Do you know what it really reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you
ever eat Tasty Wheat? Switch: No, but technically, neither did you. Mouse:
That's exactly my point. Exactly. Because you have to wonder: how do the
machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe
what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna
fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for
example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which
is why chicken tastes like everything. Apoc: Shut up, Mouse."

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/quotes?qt0324288>

~~~
gbeeson
Excellent quote and that sums it up nicely for me. Gack from a can. Yumbo.

------
debacle
Someone made a comment yesterday on another site about how we are still living
in the bacterial age.

It's a strange notion, that bacteria still own the earth, but we are host to
more bacteria than we are our own cells. It's such an interesting yet scary
thing to think about - does higher order life exist solely as vessels for
bacteria propagation?

~~~
marshray
Well bacteria are a lot smaller than our own cells, so comparing them by count
doesn't seem very meaningful.

~~~
debacle
By mass, bacteria is still the dominant lifeform on earth.

~~~
marshray
Yeah, that's cool. Any idea how much mass of a human they make up?

~~~
debacle
Less than 2kg.

------
_stephan
This an interesting article by the Economist about the human microbiome
("Looking at human beings as ecosystems"):

Link: <http://www.economist.com/node/21560523>

------
psycr
Two interesting notes from the abstract:

"The endotoxin-producing Enterobacter decreased in relative abundance from 35%
of the volunteer’s gut bacteria to non-detectable, during which time the
volunteer lost 51.4 kg of 174.8 kg initial weight and recovered from
hyperglycemia and hypertension after 23 weeks on a diet of whole grains,
traditional Chinese medicinal foods and prebiotics."

"The obesity-inducing capacity of this human-derived endotoxin producer in
gnotobiotic mice suggests that it may causatively contribute to the
development of obesity in its human host."

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fernly
This is potentially huge news. If it can be replicated you can take all the
high-fat/low-fat, high-carb/low-carb, paleo whatever diets and chuck them. "we
show that one endotoxin-producing bacterium isolated from a morbidly obese
human’s gut induced obesity and insulin resistance in germfree mice." "Germ-
free mice" are mice raised from before birth with no germs, so the effect of a
single infection can be observed without complications. They claim that a
single bacterium strain from a human gut, infected into mice, gave them not
just obesity but insulin resistance and inflammatory symptoms -- a close
analog of the complex we call "metabolic syndrome" in obese people.

If even some cases of metabolic syndrome can be linked to a simple bacterium
-- and cured simply by killing that bug -- this will have the economic and
medicinal effects of, well, not the eradication of smallpox, but pretty close.

Scientifically it's the equal of marshal and warren finding the bacterial
cause of peptic ulcers -- and they got the Nobel for medicine for that.

~~~
gte910h
>well, not the eradication of smallpox, but pretty close.

Heart disease kills far more people than smallpox ever did. You have a 20%
higher chance of heart disease if overweight.

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jack-r-abbit
I can comprehend a good deal of code but this medical jargon is making my head
spin. Anyone care to summarize this for us feeble minded laypersons? Because
it sounds like they found something in obese people that if eliminated could
lead to weight loss. I know there are people that can benefit from that when
_extreme_ obesity makes regular, "simple" dieting very challenging and
exercise impossible.

~~~
not_that_noob
tl;dr: fat guy lost a ton of weight by a diet that reduced a specific kind of
gut bacteria; this bacteria inserted into mice engineered to be thin caused
the mice to gain weight.

Ergo, bacteria may be driving obesity.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
So in theory, if a pill was developed to just kill that bacteria, fat guy
loses weight.

~~~
Steqheu
Maybe big pharma and the food industry knew this the whole time.

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indiecore
Great, another article for fat acceptance idiots to read the title of and
declare it cake day.

> The volunteer lost 30.1 kg after 9 weeks, and 51.4 kg after 23 weeks, on a
> diet composed of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods and
> prebiotics (WTP diet, Supplementary Information; Supplementary Figure 1),
> with continued amelioration of hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia and
> hypertension until most metabolic parameters improved to normal ranges
> (Table 1). After 9 weeks on the WTP diet, this Enterobacter population in
> the volunteer's gut reduced to 1.8%, and became undetectable by the end of
> the 23-week trial, as shown in the clone library analysis (Table 1;
> Supplementary Figures 2 and 3).

~~~
panzagl
You're right, we should all lament the possible passing of another way of
judging people inferior to us.

~~~
indiecore
I don't care if someone is fat. What I care about is the loons saying that
it's healthy and fine to be morbidly obese and they use stuff like this to
back it up.

"Gut bacteria are the cause, I can do nothing"

"It's genetics"

No, it's calories in vs calories out. Maybe these bacteria make you want to
eat more, maybe they somehow pull more energy out of food than normal gut
flora somehow, in the end it doesn't really matter. Eat less, lose weight; eat
more, gain weight; the definition of 'more' and 'less' are individual.

~~~
AsylumWarden
No, you are still wrong. I am morbidly obese and struggle with my weight
daily. It will kill me in the end but I want to know what you would do when
your metabolism is so low that your normal body temperature hangs at around
97.2F and resists being raised even by means of medications and heavy
exercise. I'm sorry but when numerous doctors over 20 years all throw their
hands up and say they can't help then there is nothing to be done. I admit, I
could starve myself on something around 700 calories a day for the rest of my
life but I would rather die; I think most would. I could hit the gym for 6
hours a day, likely with very little improvement, but I need to work to
support myself and my family.

Finally, I get tired of arm chair nutritionists going off and telling people
that it is all about eat less and exercise more. Obesity isn't a one solution
fits all problem and it is only arrogance to think otherwise.

This article points out that there is yet another possibility to look into.
Yet again, something that works against the old mantra eat less exercise more.
We simply still don't know enough about the human body. There are going to be
many more surprises for the obese population. In the mean time we have to
combat our weight and jerks who think they know everything.

~~~
indiecore
If your condition is as you describe than I'm sorry for you but you're one of
like 0.1% of the population (probably less). It's fine, you got dealt a shit
hand but you aren't saying that being obese is a healthy lifestyle and the
thing is _other people are_.

Everyone I've ever known or read about has gained weight by eating more and
lost weight by eating less, again less and more vary from individual to
individual but the fact that calories in = calories out for maintenance is a
law of physics.

~~~
neilk
Dude, you're just embarrassing yourself. Stop.

Until you brought it up, nobody had said that this article means fat is
a-okay. In fact, the article treats obesity as a disease, so it's the reverse.

If you ever find yourself getting mad at people for what they _might_ say, you
are definitely dealing with your own issues.

Doubly so if you take the time to rebut these imaginary enemies in a public
forum.

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snoldak924
This is how the zombie outbreak starts...

