Micro biome responsible for weight gain or loss?!! REALLY :0

Well as a livestock owner (horses), I have to laugh. If feeding corns and grains causes them to be fat, please explain that to my horses whom I deliberately feed an extremely high protien ration balancer to so they dont over consume on alot of hay and get fat. The grasses/hays horses and cattle eat are actually pretty high in fat. Thats why if you notice they tend to go for certain grasses and usually shorter grasses (more nutrients).

My horses have got fatter off quality hay and grass than any grain. Grains are usually used in place to make up for poor quality forage or to make up for high energy usage.....well in the proper sense. Cause like most animals here they are flat out over fed.

lol!

I have actually read about this, although, not the book you've mentioned. This postulate became extraordinarily popular circa 2013 in academic circles studying the western diet and the obesity epidemic. Predictably, a lot of faddish books capitalizing on the Paleo trend were published proporting that eating to feed one's "micro-biome" was the key to easy weight loss.

Of that, I remain skeptical.

Additionally, the fact that WW does anything -- a for-profit-company that makes its money basically by convincing people that they are perpetually failing -- also means nothing to me.

However, peer-reviewed scientific studies do excite me -- and there does seem to be at the very least a correlation between organismal biodiversity in the gut and obesity/metabolic syndrome. The preliminary studies do seem to point to this being of particular interest to post-RNY patients. If you are interested in reading more about this, here's a link to a review of multiple studies and their links:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4392891/

I really enjoyed that book. It basically tells the story of scientific research in fat and had all kinds of interesting info.

I think it mentioned that some people extract more energy from the same food than others and one hypothesis for this was gut bacteria. They found some rats weighed 30% more than others when they all ate exactly the same food but fecal transplants between the populations had an effect both ways. it was a very interesting read, but not at all a how-to-lose-weight guide.

CBC had an interesting radio interview with the author that can be found here if anyone is interested: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-february- 23-2017-1.3994457/the-truth-about-fat-the-body-s-least-under stood-organ-1.3994475

Scientists recently have linked Parkinson's Disease to the gut, so I guess it could be an influencer is a lot of maladies.

But WW made veggies free because they don't have many calories and they'd rather you fill up on them than bread.

An influencer "of" not "is". Argh.

I'm too new here to understand why people are attacking the OP, but the link between gut bacteria and weight is no myth. If you take the time to research it on PubMed, ncbi and other reputable sources you will see that the health science community has been studying and learning all sorts of interesting things.

Has anyone heard of fecal transplants? Scientists have found that by transplanting the feces of obese people into thin people causes them to gain weight, and also vice versa. These transplants are also showing benefits for autoimmune diseases such as MS, diabetes, Crohns, etc.

Statistics are showing a correlation between children born by c-section and future obesity, because they don't receive the benefit of their mothers gut bacteria.

There are even studies around this in bariatric patients - it turns out these procedures can actually improve the micro ions, though it takes a few years.

I recommend taking the time to look into this amazing new era of health science before mocking others for posting about it.

sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/behindtheheadlines /news/2016-09-07-c-section-babies-more-likely-to-grow-up-obe se/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945175/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3337124/

The study linking C-section to obesity was seriously mis-represented by a lot of the media. The original research stated that C-section babies were 15% more likely to end up obese than babies born vaginally.

BUT 15% is statistically nothing. Smoking, for example, increases your cancer risk by about 2000%.

There are possibly a LOT of confounding variables in the research that were neither considered nor controlled for, so I'm incredibly hesitant to draw any firm conclusions from it.

Here's a great take on this research:

http://www.skepticalob.com/2016/09/c-sections-increase-the-r isk-of-obesity-by-15-big-deal-15-is-essentially-nothing.html

Research is great, but correlation is NOT the same as causation.

Thank you so much! I am off to read more. My son was born via c-section and I carry guilt/worry that I set him up for obesity.

He is a major reason why I am having surgery and changing my lifestyle, I don't want him to follow me down this path.

I just want to reassure you that any time a healthy baby and a living mother leave the hospital, it's a success. There are already so many things to worry about being a mother, how we bring them into the world should not have to be one of them.

:::hugs mama:::