The relationship between gut microbiota and weight gain in

humansEmmanouil Angelakis, Fabrice Armougom, Matthieu Million, Didier Raoult

PPT By: Andrea Bonde

Overview• Article is a review of the actual experiments• Gut microbes may be a cause of obesity

• Associated with a number of disease states that include allergy, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer,

and diabetes.• Gut flora contribute enzymes that are absent in

humans for food digestion• 95% of total organisms in intestine and colon

+ =

Obesity• Affects 400 million individuals

• Associated with severe disorders

• Influenced by a mixture of environmental, genetic, neural,

and endocrine factors.• Infectious agents have been

proposed to be a cause• 32 genes are linked to BMI

(body mass index)• Availability of inexpensive,

calorically dense foods

Gut Microbiota• Approx. 1011-12 microorganisms per gram of human

content in the GI tract.• Gut flora have variations among different populations.

• Gut flora also varies due to age

• Bacteroids• Eubacterium• Bifidobacterium• Peptostreptoccocus• Fusobacterium• Ruminococcus• Clostridium• Lactobacillus

Microbes Per Year of LifeNewborn 3wk-1yr 1-7yrs 2-18yrs Adult

Bifidobacteria BacteriodeStaphlococcusLactobacillus

BifidobacteriaClostridium

Starts to resemble the

adult microflora

Stable level of Bifidobacteria

and Lactobacillus

Stable over time

• Dietary habits are considered to be one of the main factors that contribute to the diversity of the human

gut microbiota.• With a high-fat/low-fiber or low-fat/high-fiber diet

microbe composition has detectable change in 24hours.

Obese VS. Lean

Higher levels of certain

bacteria due to body type.

Conclusion•Obese and lean individuals have

different levels of bacteria populations.

•Diet significantly changed gut microbiota.

• The manipulation of gut microbes with probiotics, prebiotics, antibiotics and other interventions were factors

for weight gain and obesity, and should be investigated further!

Further Perspective• Increasing number of studies• Shifts in abundances of bacterial

communities• Interpretation of the results might

have been biased, thus far.•Food = Source for viruses and Bacteria• Little effort in standardizing research•Ask how and MAKE IT MANDITORY!

Works Cited

"Search." Earn Reward Points and Redeem Them For Free Stuff at

Swagbucks.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2013.

<http://www.swagbucks.com>.

"The relationship between gut microbiota and weight gain in

humans." Future Medicine. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2013.

<http://www.furutremedicine.com/>.