Edge on Health Blog

“Infectobesity” Is the Latest Hidden Weight Gain Factor.

Taking probiotics (beneficial bacteria or friendly flora) may be the real deal when it comes to losing weight. New Swiss research links bacteria in the gut with inflammation that leads to metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

While overweight is “often considered as an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure” (something that’s notoriously easy to happen over the busy holiday season), Swiss scientists suggest the “black box of the bowel” plays a surprisingly important role in both calorie and energy expenditure.

Approximately 100 trillion microorganisms live in our gastrointestinal (GI) tract. And we need a ratio of 85 to 15 in favor of “good guy” bacteria for optimum health—and weight control.

Stanford University researchers find that beneficial bacteria enhance weight loss—even among obese individuals. Another study shows imbalances in gut bacteria among overweight 7 year olds!

As I discuss in Fat Flush for Life, earlier groundbreaking research at Washington University’s Center for Genome Science has spawned a whole new science called “infectobesity,” which shows how bacteria and viruses impact the absorption of food and how gut hormones regulate appetite and metabolic rate.

The lead author of the study, Jeffrey Gordon, MD, states, “Our studies imply that differences in our gut microbial ecology may determine how many calories we are able to extract and absorb from our diet and deposit in our fat cells.” Dr. Gordon’s research also notes decreased microflora in the gut of those who are obese.

While it is still unclear whether this imbalance is a cause or consequence, the potential implications for obese humans to reduce weight by balancing gut bacteria is downright fascinating.

My new book, Fat Flush For Life, The Year-Round Super Detox Plan to Boost Your Metabolism and Keep the Weight Off Permanently is the first Fat Flush program to use probiotics specifically for weight loss benefits. But for years, probiotics have been an integral part of my dietary protocols in books like Guess What Came to Dinner? Parasites and Your Health, The Fast Track Detox Diet, and The Gut Flush Plan.

Weight Control
For the basic weight loss and cleansing protocols in Fat Flush for Life, I recommend a powdered probiotic supplement, Flora-Key that I have been using in private practice for over a decade. It can do double duty as an immune booster and natural sweetener, especially important since the program cuts out sugar, sugar alcohols, and even artificial sweeteners like aspartame or Splenda®.

In Fat Flush for Life, Flora-Key is a key dietary ingredient in no-heat foods like frappes, fruits, and the brand new Green Life Cocktail. It contains a basic combination of lactobacillus, bifidobacterium, and frucooligosaccharides (FOS) from complex sugars that function as a prebiotic.

A prebiotic is a food that feeds the beneficial bacteria while discouraging pathogens. FOS is a naturally occurring sweetener in fruits and some vegetables. It provides the taste buds with the sweetness of sugar, but the molecules are too big to be digested by the body as sugar. Since FOS is not digested, this sweetener doesn’t affect blood sugar levels—nor can it be utilized by Candida albicans, other yeasts, and some bacteria.

The best news about FOS, though, is that it provides a benefit that none of the other sweeteners do: It nourishes and promotes the growth of friendly intestinal bacteria such as bifidobacteria in your large intestine — without feeding pathogenic bacteria. This makes it a potentially good-for-you sweetener for people struggling with weight, yeast infections, and other GI disorders.

With Flora-Key, you get the best of both worlds - a probiotic fed by a prebiotic! You can take two to three teaspoons per day.

Immune Support
For heavy-duty immune enhancement, I still stand by Dr. Ohhira’s Probiotics 12 PLUS, available in health food stores all over the country. It contains all the beneficial lactic acid bacteria found in humans.

Perhaps this product’s major claim to fame, though, is its patented TH10 strain that neutralizes the “smart bugs” (like salmonella and E. coli) that spread food-borne disease and resist antibiotics. More than a probiotic, 12 PLUS provides a flora-balancing system. It improves gut pH for the benefit of other friendly flora, while requiring no refrigeration.

Probiotics 12 PLUS is also dairy-, soy-, and gluten-free. Best of all, the product is backed by nearly 15 years of university-backed scientific research.

Breaking News from Amazon.com -
Fat Flush for Life is NOW Available! Order today!

Sources:
Fat Flush for Life
www.health.yahoo.com/experts/weightloss/8725/probiotics-for-weight-loss
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1946260
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19865517

Tags: bacteria, diabetes, Fat Flush, hormones, immunity, insulin, obesity, probiotics, sugar, weight loss

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Diet/Detox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.