his week is Obesity Awareness Week and we all recognise that eating more healthily is one of the simplest changes most of us can make to improve out health and lose weight. But knowing what to change and how can seem a bit daunting.

Healthy eating is not just about eating the right foods – it is also about making sure that we have a healthy gut. Experiments show that eating a healthy diet encourages microbes associated with leanness to become incorporated into the gut. A diet high in saturated fat and low in fruits and vegetables thwarts the invasion of microbes associated with leanness. This is important as we look to develop next-generation probiotic cocktails composed of defined collections of naturally occurring human gut microbes as a treatment for obesity.”

Researchers speculate that people are more likely to gain weight when gut bacteria are more efficient at breaking down food, enabling the body to absorb more calories. They theorize that less-efficient bacteria allow food to pass more quickly through the intestines.

If you want to stay lean, you’ll want bacteria that are not very efficient. For example, if we each eat a bowl of cereal and your bacteria are better than mine at breaking it down, you’ll get 95 calories, while I’ll only get 70, and the rest will pass through. You’re the one who’s going to gain weight!

The food one eats contributes to the composition of the bacterial communities in the gut… high-fat, low-fiber diets have been associated with different bacteria in the gut than low-fat, high-fiber diets, which may play a role in who develops obesity. Yes it may be a vicious cycle but one we can interrupt.

Why not contact me for more a discussion about how having a healthy gut can help reduce obesity.