Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

Re:Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfr... by jack-r-abbit on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @02:39PM (#4944336)

I can comprehend a good deal of code but this medical jargon is making my head spin. Anyone care to summarize this for us feeble minded laypersons? Because it sounds like they found something in obese people that if eliminated could lead to weight loss. I know there are people that can benefit from that when extreme obesity makes regular, "simple" dieting very challenging and exercise impossible.

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Re:Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfr... by not_that_noob on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @02:44PM (#4944370)

tl;dr: fat guy lost a ton of weight by a diet that reduced a specific kind of gut bacteria; this bacteria inserted into mice engineered to be thin caused the mice to gain weight.

Ergo, bacteria may be driving obesity.

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Re:Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfr... by fernly on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @11:58PM (#4946342)

Not only obesity, but insulin resistance: basically gave the mice the start of "metabolic syndrome", as also observed in obese humans.

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Re:Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfr... by jack-r-abbit on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @03:08PM (#4944498)

So in theory, if a pill was developed to just kill that bacteria, fat guy loses weight.

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Re:Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfr... by Steqheu on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @03:55PM (#4944767)

Maybe big pharma and the food industry knew this the whole time.

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