WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT? Gut bacteria may be exactly what you need!!!

Inspired by previous studies on the subject, a team
of researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville
tested a strain of safe bacteria that has been used to
treat diarrhea since its discovery 100 years ago. The
resulting success, using mice as subjects, suggests a
probiotic treatment for obesity may soon be a reality.
Despite regulatory issues that need to be addressed
before human studies can be conducted, senior study
investigator Sean Davies, Ph.D., assistant professor
of pharmacology at Vanderbilt, remains confident
that things are moving in the right direction.
'This paper provides a proof of concept,' says Davies,
who in 2007 received a National Institutes of Health
Director's New Innovator Award to develop and test
the idea. 'Clearly, we can get enough bacteria to
persist in the gut and have a sustained
effect.' Davies says his objective was beyond mere
analysis of certain gut bacteria's effects, which have
shown promise in combatting obesity in many
studies.
Rather, his team employed genetic modification of
the E. coli Nissle 1917 strain, producing a naturally
occurring lipid called NAPE which ignites a biological
pathway leading to reduced appetite and also
inhibits weight gain. 'The types of bacteria you have
in your gut influence your risk for chronic diseases,'
Davies said. 'We wondered if we could manipulate
the gut microbiota in a way that would promote
health.'
This sort of manipulation of safe bacteria, performed
either through genetic modification or biological
engineering, as in the case of an Irish
study published in 2010, is not new, although
Davies' recent success is highly promising. In the
study, researchers put mice on a high-fat diet, which
they say can inhibit natural NAPE production, and
then added NAPE to their mice's drinking water. The
test group, which had access to the charmed NAPE-
fortified water, showed reduced food intake, body fat,
insulin resistance and fatty liver when compared to
the control group, which received non-modified
bacteria.
The positive results lasted four weeks after NAPE was
removed from the water source, and the test group
was still healthier than the control group 12 weeks
later, although Davies hopes to be able to produce
lasting results in future research. 'We still haven't
achieved our ultimate goal, which would be to do one
treatment and then never have to administer the
bacteria again,' says Davies. 'Six weeks is pretty long
to have active bacteria, and the animals are still less
obese 12 weeks out.'
The reduction of the fatty liver condition, well known
to occur in the obese, suggests potential therapeutic
use for such bacteria beyond the gut. According to
Davies, his team is at work to further modify the
bacteria in hopes to circumvent regulatory issues
and begin human clinical trials. The study
was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Source: AFP

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