Over the years, people have searched for all kinds of weight loss shortcuts: detox juices, marathon sauna sessions, or even cayenne body creams, all of which have proven to be quite useless for long-term success. Probiotics are a world to discover and are proposed as little fat pumps. So is consuming them a legitimate tactic to lose weight, or just another passing trend?
What are probiotics?
They are live microorganisms , predominantly the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains, that can populate your gastrointestinal tract when consumed through fermented foods or supplements. The community of microorganisms that lives in us and in us is called a microbiome. Once probiotics fertilize your gut and build their microbiome in favor of the good guys, these beneficial bugs can help you properly digest dinner, aid in the production of certain vitamins, and strengthen the immune system (and who's not thinking about immunity? days).
There are two first families of bacteria in the intestine: the good Bacteroidetes and the not so good Firmicutes . And if you're training hard these days, it's good to know that a study in the journal Nutrients suggests that certain probiotics may help protect athletes from upper respiratory tract infections. The happier your gut, the better your body will function.
Consuming probiotics for better gut function and keeping colds at bay is one thing, but you may have heard that emerging science suggests that some of the billions of tiny microbes in your gut's natural ecosystem may help improve your potency ratio. -weight by making it easier to lose weight, too.
Do they help you lose weight?
Some promising research associating probiotics with numbers on the scale comes from a study in the British Journal of Nutrition where obese women enrolled in a weight loss program who received the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus lost more body weight (just under 2 kilos) for three months and they did a better job of avoiding it than those who took a placebo. Additionally, women who took a probiotic supplement continued to lose more weight in the weight maintenance stage after they finished dieting.
For whatever reason, there were no real differences in weight loss among the male participants. However, another study at Obesity found that daily supplementation with a probiotic containing eight live strains of bacteria helped protect men against weight gain by eating a diet high in calories and fat . Canadian scientists found that when overweight adults consumed yogurt enriched with Lactobacillus amylovorus and Lactobacillus fermentum, they lost more body fat (a total of 3 to 4 percent). In this study, people who drank fermented milk mixed with a strain of Lactobacillus gasseri lost just over 8 percent of their abdominal fat in 12 weeks. However, when they stopped drinking the milk, the fat loss stopped, suggesting that constant consumption is necessary.
How can probiotics help us lose weight?
It is still unclear how probiotics promote weight loss, but there are several theories. Different microbiota have a different ability to extract energy from food and regulate our energy balance, which can lead to changes in body composition. For example, certain probiotics can block fat absorption and increase fat excretion through stool , thus reducing the amount of calories the body absorbs.
Our microbiome is also involved in controlling food intake and satiety by altering hormones in the gut that send satiety signals to the brain to stop overeating. This last point is supported by research on the association between probiotics and body weight published in the journal Nutrients, which suggests that consuming lactobacillus rhamnosus may affect our gut-brain axis to regulate appetite . In other words, the probiotic sends signals to our brain to tell us that we are full and that we don't need to fill a second serving of spaghetti.
And you may not need to take probiotics directly to reap its reducing powers. Researchers from Arizona State University have uncovered evidence suggesting that a high fiber diet may increase the levels of beneficial Prevotella bacteria in your gut, and this may be one reason why research has linked the consumption of more dietary fiber. with less risk of overweight or obesity. Some evidence shows that our microbiota breaks down fiber into elements like fruits and vegetables into useful compounds that include short-chain anti-inflammatory fatty acids.
How much must we take to make it effective?
This is all very preliminary and largely based on speculation and theories. There is simply not enough evidence to support a cause and effect relationship between probiotic consumption, gut bacteria, and waist size.
Regarding dosage, do we need to consume a billion, 10 billion, or 100 billion live bacteria? Sorry about that, there are no answers yet.
And will probiotics work for people who are fit or only for those who want to lose a couple of pounds? When not done in animals, most research to date has been done in obese people whose body weight may be more sensitive to changes in the microbiome. There appears to be sufficient evidence to show that obesity is associated with an intestinal microbiome that is out of balance with bacteria in the undesirable Firmicutes family that produce signaling molecules that promote fat production.
A typical high-fat, high-calorie western diet can contribute to a dysfunctional microbiome that is associated with obesity rather than thinness. Although there is some animal data showing that certain probiotics promote weight loss, similar human trials have been much less impressive.
The composition of the gut microbiome does not appear to be the underlying cause of obesity , so focus on healthy eating and exercise habits, and both could cause you to lose some weight and improve the good microbes that make it easier to maintain a healthier body weight.
