Gut Bacteria From Thin Humans Can Slim Mice Down

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/health/gut-bacteria-from-thin-humans-can-slim-mice-down.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

by kenjackson • 13 years ago

77 77 13 years ago

jokull2• 13 years ago

For those interested in recent research focusing on the interplay between bacteria and our immune systems, I recommend An Epidemic of Absence by Moises Velasquez-Manoff.

Podcast introduction from Chris Kresser: http://chriskresser.com/what-are-the-hidden-costs-of-modern-...

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1439199388?tag=chrikres-20&link_cod...

riggins• 13 years ago

thanks for the article

Luc2• 13 years ago

Hard to tell at a glance whether this "Hygiene Hypothesis" is legitimate science, or wishful thinking on the part of the journalist who wrote the book. I'm leaning towards being rather sceptical.

Klinky• 13 years ago

It's not bunk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis

Some studies have shown parasites improve the symptoms of certain chronic illnesses, such as Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Fecal transplantation has also been used to treat chronic digestive ailments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_bacteriotherapy

graeme3• 13 years ago

You could do the absolute minimum of due diligence and check if there is a Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis

It's been extensively studied by epidemiologists and immunologists. There is some experimental evidence to support the theory.

mason240• 13 years ago

I can't wait to start hearing this excuse.

aaronblohowiak• 13 years ago

Is your comment furthering the intellectual discourse that makes HN different from other news sites?

grannyg00se9• 13 years ago

" the part of the study that most surprised other experts was an experiment indicating that, with the right diet, it might be possible to change the bacteria in a fat person’s gut so that they promote leanness rather than obesity. "

Right. So back to the same common sense advice. It would seem wise to simply fix your diet first, maybe throw in a little exercise, and then see what happens. That is, before trying things like fecal transplants.

loceng• 13 years ago

I think the idea would be that you could fast-track the process, with compounded benefits / amplifying the effects. I've not looked into this much, so not sure if that is a possibility.

chm• 13 years ago

Common sense still has to be scientifically tested.

js2• 13 years ago

It's more complicated than that. First it's worth quoting the rest of that paragraph:

"The investigators discovered that given a chance, and in the presence of a low-fat diet, bacteria from a lean twin will take over the gut of a mouse that already had bacteria from a fat twin. The fat mouse then loses weight. But the opposite does not happen. No matter what the diet, bacteria from a fat mouse do not take over in a mouse that is thin."

Second, the context (described later in the article) is among co-habitating mice that eat each other's droppings, allowing their gut flora to commingle. When the mice were kept separate, the mice that had received gut flora from a fat human twin ended up 10-15% heavier even on the identical low-fat diet as the mice that received flora from a thin human.

(Aside, because it's personal: I have no trouble controlling my weight through diet and exercise. When I ate poorly and exercised little I was as heavy as 190 lbs. With exercise and being mindful about my diet I have no trouble maintaining 150 lbs. My wife, otoh, has struggled with her weight almost her entire life. To lose weight she has to weigh and track every ounce of food she consumes. It is a constant battle for her. Sadly, I see this dichotomy playing out in our son and daughter. My son will never struggle with his weight; I fear my daughter always may. And we eat well in this house. Real food, mostly plants, not too much.

So yeah, I think some people are thin almost no matter what they eat, some struggle with weight almost no matter what they do, and some are more in between. But a holier than thou attitude about being thin helps no one.)

grannyg00se9• 13 years ago

It is clearly more complicated, but I don't see anything in your response that would indicate that one should not try fixing their diet as a first course of action.

AJ007• 13 years ago

This story really doesn't belong on HN, but I digress since it relates to a health issue I've seen a lot of software developers experience,

Making the assumption that the average obese person eat diets largely consisting of processed food (which though is not always high glycemic index is almost always accompanied by something which is), someone who is eating a diet of unprocessed foods should have a greater diversity in their gut bacteria.

One thing I have not seen mentioned is the use of anti-biotic medicine and gut bacteria. I now know of multiple friends who have undergone a regimen of heavy anti-biotic medicine, only to have digestive problems for anywhere from 6 months to well over a year and beyond.

jared314• 13 years ago

undergone a regimen of heavy anti-biotic medicine, only to have digestive problems

They have, recently, started to understand how that happens[1][2].

[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...

[2] http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2013/september/sonnenburg.html

avalaunch• 13 years ago

I'm responding just to your first point that the story doesn't belong on HN.

From HN submission guidelines:

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

I think the story qualifies.

wwweston• 13 years ago

What diet is "the right diet" for changing gut bacteria? Is it the same as common sense advice? If so, which common sense advice?

grannyg00se9• 13 years ago

I would say that trying to change your diet to target a particular gut bacteria profile is not quite the way to go about it.

hackinthebochs• 13 years ago

Yes, because fecal transplants are so invasive.

brentm• 13 years ago

A similar concept is touched upon here: How Fecal Transplants Work - http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/human-biology/fecal-tr...

jvh23• 13 years ago

Poor fat twin.

danielharan3• 13 years ago

If I were morbidly obese I'd rather have an enema with a thin, healthy person's feces than have a surgeon cut me up and put a band around my stomach to reduce the amount I can eat.

Am I the one that's weird? Or is it the doctors who see the fecal transplant as a last-ditch effort only after surgery?

eksith• 13 years ago

Holy Grand Poobah! I was just about to go out for lunch.

I don't think you're unique in your aversion to the knife (I know people who have risked serious long-term health issues by avoiding surgery), but maybe not many people are weird enough to prefer the fecal enema.

incongruity• 13 years ago

I'm with you 100% -- many bariatric surgeries discard parts of the digestive system – there's no going back (at this point). Given some set of safety precautions (HIV, Hepatitis screening, etc.), I think a lot of people would gladly try the fecal enema instead. I definitely would.

mahyarm• 13 years ago

I'd rather just force myself to 2000 calories a day before I tried even that.

danielharan3• 13 years ago

If the culprit is bacteria, why torture yourself with starvation?

People have gained weight on half as many calories.

2000 calories hasn't worked for a lot of people, perhaps because the gut bacteria is too efficient and the body alters their metabolism.

jamesli• 13 years ago

It is exaggeration "by transplanting feces from thin people". It is for eye-catching. I believe scientists will strive to identify the bacterium or bacteria, grow and purify them in an emotionally-acceptable environment. The bacteria will be transplanted, mostly with some supplement for certain medicine purposes, not the feces.

danielharan3• 13 years ago

There are already people doing that right now. No exaggeration. Google "DIY fecal" and it will auto-complete with "transplant".

Irene• 13 years ago

And if you are healthy and thin you can make money by donating it: http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/vol/4050676649.html

idupree• 13 years ago

I don't see "thin" in that description. (One can't infer it; "healthy ⇒ thin" is false. Do you have inside information on this study?)

wpietri2• 13 years ago

Neither group is weird. It's totally reasonable for individuals to prefer a fecal transplant over surgery.

But doctors are part of a complicated system that prevents wild-ass medical experiments from being tried on humans. If you go in front of a review board [1] and say, "Hey, we'd like to try experimenting on live humans by giving them an unknown collection of microorganisms in hope that unspecified good things will happen", I can't imagine that it will go well.

Like it or not, the best currently proven treatment is the band. To prove that something else is better is a lot of work. I strongly share your suspicion that fecal transplants would be better, and if I were desperate that's what I'd try with my own body. But medical history is littered with treatments that looked promising but didn't work out, often because of hideous unexpected side effects.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board

stretchwithme2• 13 years ago

Its also a system that sometimes takes forever to change even when there is evidence.

I read recently that it took 25 years to stop x-raying pregnant women after a British doctor found that it lead to birth defects.

And the unnecessary surgeries and medication and scans. I really find it hard to think of this as a conservative industry governed by "first, do no harm". These are all well-tested, according the establishment.

Fecal bacteria may not be well tested by the establishment, but its something we have been living with for millions of years. Many animals are constantly exposed to fecal matter. And so are you if you ride public transportation.

Maybe what this approach needs is someone like Craig Venter to sequence all the bacteria found in generally healthy people and people with specific problems. He did this in the oceans and found all this previously undiscovered genomes. That same tech could probably determine what strains of bacteria to start testing just from their absence in the unhealthy.

At the same time, their presence in the perfectly healthy indicates that the bacteria in question probably isn't dangerous. Of course, how specific individuals will react is always an unknown. But that remains an unknown even after something is well tested.

When I hear all the possible side effects of accepted drugs, which often include death, I have to wonder if there isn't some bias in favor of things created in a lab and where someone stands to make large profits. These drugs are recalled all the time and class action suits are common.

None of this inspires much confidence in how treatments are evaluated.

Aqueous2• 13 years ago

'"“I’m very excited about this,” he added, saying the next step will be to try using gut bacteria to treat obesity by transplanting feces from thin people.

“I have little doubt that that will be the next thing that happens,” Dr. Fischbach said.

But Dr. Flier said it was far too soon for that.'

I agree. It is far too soon - wait until you've named it something other than 'fecal transplant.' It's a branding issue.

Exciting news, though. I think our society uses shame as a motivator way too much. We judge each other far too easily. Thin people take the fact that they are thin for granted, and then accuse fat people of being lazy.

As someone who gained a bit of weight recently in the past two years inexplicably and suddenly, having been thin before, with no change in diet or exercise, I wonder how much of this is actually in our direct control, and about the quality of the simple answers we give to shame people into exercising or dieting.

graeme3• 13 years ago

Microbiotal augmentation?

Pxtl• 13 years ago

I've got a zillion digestive problems running in my family so I'm actually super-excited by the fecal transplant tech. If I can steal your healthy bowel, I don't care if the idea's a little icky.

wonder how much of this is actually in our direct control, and about the quality of the simple answers we give to shame people into exercising or dieting.

There's a contingent of people who find this attitude morally offensive. They worked hard for their health and are disgusted by those who want an easy way... and also people who didn't work hard to stay thin and are thin anyways like the self-congratulatory notion that they're doing something right.

Every time a new weight-loss tech appears you get people ranting about diet and excersize and the offensive nature of this "shortcut".

I'm reminded how Socrates was offended by the growth of writing because it was somehow morally inferior to memorization.

Aqueous2• 13 years ago

Yep. There will always be people complaining that technology makes us lazy. I think that's a good thing, because if there's no meaningful difference in our health, the time we spent trying to fend off the weight gain we could be spending doing other, less self-involved things thanks to technology.

I'm working hard to lose my extra weight. I run 3 miles every morning before breakfast. I've changed my diet and have been actively trying to eat less. Still, the pounds are coming off extraordinarily slowly. I'm not totally sure I'll ever be the weight I started again.

oblique633• 13 years ago

There's a contingent of people who find this attitude morally offensive. They worked hard for their health and are disgusted by those who want an easy way... and also people who didn't work hard to stay thin and are thin anyways like the self-congratulatory notion that they're doing something right.

From my own experience, all the people that I know for sure 'worked hard' to achieve their fitness levels, are always the first to be the most understanding about the whole ordeal. Even the strong personality types. The vibe is always along the lines of: "yes, it can be incredibly difficult, and there are many paths to the same destination, but look at me -- it's possible!". I haven't seen many of of these people 'disgusted' at others who want an easier way, if anything they can probably sympathize cause they were probably there themselves at one point.

So that leaves the "didn't work hard" camp, and the "disgusted by an easy way out" bunch... Now, I'm not gonna draw any conclusions cause this is all anecdotal, and perhaps some people don't like to flaunt their successes or use them to inspire others, but it is tempting to make the correlation.

zimbatm• 13 years ago

Weight is also related to age. Lots of people start gaining weight when passing the 30ies because their metabolism starts slowing down.

StacyC• 13 years ago

The Paleo Diet (or something similar) has also worked well for many people in losing weight and just feeling better overall. The culprit seems to be less about calories and exercise than about eliminating carbs, sugar and processed foods.

There is quite a lot of anecdotal evidence to support this, and I can just add that my wife and I started on it nine weeks ago and we have never felt better. I even dropped a few pounds although I didn't really need to. We also supplement with probiotics to ensure that we maintain good levels of healthy bacteria in the gut, which is where much of our immune system functions.

yeahsure• 13 years ago

I'm currently doing a Keto diet (very similar to Paleo) and -at least for me- this is definitely the case. I'm addicted to carbs. I cut carbs and I immediately start losing weight and forget about constant hunger. Whenever I eat anything with carbs, my weight loss stalls and I start having cravings again, all the time.

Edit: Oh, and by the way, I've lost 40 lbs since I started :-)

vl• 13 years ago

Could you tell more about what version of paleo are you doing? Do you buy prepared on cook yourself?

acchow• 13 years ago

Cutting carbs? Anecdotal evidence to support it? How about anecdotal evidence against it - see 2 billion+ Asians, esp. Japanese.

snowwrestler2• 13 years ago

I think one reason the paleo diet works for so many people is that most people are just bad at predicting the caloric content of food. So they think they are taking in about the same amount as before, but actually it has dropped significantly.

As an example: every single sandwich on the menu at Applebees, including the grilled cheese and the veggie burger, has more calories than the 12oz New York strip steak. The BLT has nearly 3x as many calories!

Another reason is that because it has such specific dietary guidelines, it tends to encourage people to prepare their own food rather than eat out. This alone drops more calories than people think, because of how most restaurants prepare food (with a ton of sugar, butter, fat, and oil).

I do agree that it delivers more nutrients than packaged food, which would improve health and make people feel better. It's easier to continue putting up with inconvenience if we feel better.

trekky1700• 13 years ago

Are we going to see an emerging trend with thin college students donating gut bacteria instead of the more traditional paid donations?

Gut Bacteria From Thin Humans Can Slim Mice Down

Related Stories