Major weight loss tied to microbes
Scientists at Harvard may have new hope for people struggling with obesity. A study conducted in collaboration with researchers at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital hints at a future where doctors could deliver the weight-loss benefits of gastric bypass surgery without the surgery. In a study described in a March 27 paper in Science Translational Medicine, researchers found that the surgery caused drastic changes to microbes in the guts of mice. When those microbes were transferred into the guts of sterile mice, the result was rapid weight loss. “Simply by colonizing mice with the altered microbial community, the mice were able to maintain a lower body fat, and lose weight — about 20 percent as much as they would if they underwent surgery,” said Peter Turnbaugh, a Bauer Fellow at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Center for Systems Biology, and one of two senior authors of the paper. As striking as the results...