They Are What You Eat
We've written before about the dawning realization that the microbes that live in and on us can have a surprising degree of control over our lives. Today we learn that what we eat may control which microbes we host and whether we get fat or stay lean.
In a news release from Washington University titled "Junk food binge alters community of microbes in the gut in less than a day" researchers report that high fat / high sugar diets shift the distribution of bacteria in the intestines towards those bacteria which are exceedingly efficient at extracting calories from food. These super efficient microbes, once transplanted, could then cause weight gain and obesity even in mice fed a low-fat, plant-based diet. The shift towards the super efficient microbes occurred just 18 to 20 hours after the consumption of fatty/sugary foods.
Finally, gut microbes were demonstrated to be capable of being passed from mother to offspring.
