Your gut bacteria CAN help you lose fat....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 7-7-2016

Your gut bacteria CAN help you lose fat—OR, they can force you to be fat instead!

As you may or may not know, BOTH of these have been shown to be true.

You CAN already use this to lose fat.  But it may soon become even easier.

Background:

1.  An antibiotic resistant bacteria, C Difficile, causes diarrhea that cannot be turned off which can be life threatening – besides really obnoxious.

Mercifully there is a successful treatment by replacing all the contents of the colon with fecal matter with bacteria from a healthy person.  Just emptying the colon and taking a few pills of the healthy bacteria is less messy and also works I’ve read.

But it was also discovered that the healthy person needs NOT to be fat, because if they are obese, the bacteria from their gut will make the person who it goes to fat too! This was discovered when exactly that happened

2.  MSG is well established as a fattener.  People who eat the exact same things – including the exactly the same number of calories with no MSG tend to stay free of excess fat while people who eat lots of MSG become fatter and heavier.

We now know how this happens.  MSG either kills the bacteria that keep you lean or boosts the bacteria that make you fat – or both.

Bacteria that support good health tend to help you digest nutrients but waste some calories and help you be less hungry.

Bacteria that make you fat may or may not help you digest nutrients but extract far more calories and tend to cause you to be hungrier and eat more.

3.  A study was reported some time ago on Medical News Today that a specific strain of probiotic bacteria tended to cause your gut to have the NOT fattening bacteria and that people who ingested it lost fat.

It was not then available as a supplement.  And the supplement company I asked to carry it, did not reply to me nor have they added it as a supplement.

4.  On Monday this week, Medical News Today had this:

"Cravings for high-calorie foods may be switched off in the brain by new supplement

http://mnt.to/l/4FJr

Eating a type of powdered food supplement, based on a molecule produced by bacteria in the gut, reduces cravings for high-calorie foods such as chocolate, cake and pizza, a new study suggests."

“Eating a type of powdered food supplement, based on a molecule produced by bacteria in the gut, reduces cravings for high-calorie foods such as chocolate, cake and pizza, a new study suggests.

Scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow asked 20 volunteers to consume a milkshake that either contained an ingredient called:

 inulin-propionate ester, or a type of fibre called inulin.

Previous studies have shown bacteria in the gut release a compound called propionate when they digest the fibre inulin, which can signal to the brain to reduce appetite. However the inulin-propionate ester supplement releases much more propionate in the intestines than inulin alone.

After drinking the milkshakes, the participants in the current study underwent an MRI scan, where they were shown pictures of various low or high calorie foods such as salad, fish and vegetables or chocolate, cake and pizza.

The team found that when volunteers drank the milkshake containing inulin-propionate ester, they had less activity in areas of their brain linked to reward - but only when looking at the high calorie foods. These areas, called the caudate and the nucleus accumbens, found in the centre of the brain, have previously been linked to food cravings and the motivation to want a food.

The volunteers also had to rate how appealing they found the foods. The results showed when they drank the milkshake with the inulin-propionate ester supplement they rated the high calorie foods as less appealing.

In a second part of the study, which is published in July edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the volunteers were given a bowl of pasta with tomato sauce, and asked to eat as much as they like. When participants drank the inulin-propionate ester, they ate 10 per cent less pasta than when they drank the milkshake that contained inulin alone.

In a previous research study by the same team, published in 2013, they found that overweight volunteers who added the inulin-propionate ester supplement to their food every day, gained less weight over six months compared to volunteers who added only inulin to their meals.”

The Scots researchers who did this study got a patent on this substance 3 years ago.  They’ve done the research to show it helps.  But there is not yet an inulin-propionate ester supplement for sale.

My search for it only turned up ads for supplements with inulin which has value as a kind of fertilizer for probiotic bacteria.

There is a possibly related propionate substance that is present in low amounts in strawberries and kiwifruit.  Organic strawberries and kiwifruit taste good and are low glycemic and totally good in a fat loss diet. 

So there are two possibly helpful supplements that may eventually be available.  But what can you do now?

You can do quite a lot actually.  In fact the things you can already do may be as effective or even more effective than taking those two supplements!

1.  The first thing is to find out how to make sure to never or almost never eat MSG!

As we’ve seen, there is evidence that MSG does the reverse of these two possible new supplements by helping your gut grow MORE fattening bacteria.

But long term consumption of MSG ALSO harms your thyroid and lowers your metabolism.  This too can make you fat on the food intake that didn’t before!

Then too, you can also stop eating MSG to protect your health.  The increase in inflammation that it causes in your brain is a direct cause of Alzheimer’s disease.  And, there is also some evidence that MSG helps cause or worsen some autoimmune diseases and autism.

2.  The second thing to do is to NEVER eat Splenda or Sucralose.  Research found that eating it kills probiotic gut bacteria.  This too is the reverse of what you want.

Then too, other research shows that ingesting sucralose and the other artificial sweeteners makes people fatter than ingesting sugar or high fructose corn syrup.

3.  Some people eat more fattening comfort food when they are stressed.  And some people overeat because the dopamine that causes them to feel good isn’t released very well. 
And as a result, they need more food to release enough dopamine to feel better.

So, if there was something that made you more resilient and less irritable and boosted your dopamine release, just like the new supplement, your cravings for fattening comfort food would be less. 

It turns out that taking DHA and omega 3 supplements and eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 does exactly that!

We’ve known for some time that doing this makes people considerably less irritable and even a bit smarter.  And separate research shows this help grow new brain cells, particularly if you also exercise each day.

But in a recent email I learned that DHA and omega 3 supplements and eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 ALSO increases dopamine release.

And that cuts cravings for extra feelings of reward from comfort food.

4.  The bacteria that make you fat also have been found to thrive when you eat more sugar and high fructose corn syrup and refined grains.  So, when you cut back a good bit on sugar and eliminate high fructose corn syrup and refined grains, you directly cut down on fattening bacteria too!

5.  The bacteria that keep you lean tend to thrive when you eat more nonstarchy vegetables.  So when you eat more of those you directly boost the bacteria that keep you lean.

AND, it gets even better than that another recent research study shows.  When you eat cruciferous green vegetables, and other greens such as lettuces, a kind of sulfur loving bacteria that keep you lean increase.  The extra benefit is that these sulfur compounds tend to lower inflammation and prevent osteoarthritis.

6.  You can also help your body have more bacteria that keep you lean by taking probiotic supplements with the normal form of inulin.  These bacteria do not keep you lean directly.  But they DO help prevent fattening gut bacteria from increasing.

7.  Just like sucralose, taking antibiotics or eating meat from animals routinely given antibiotics tends to cause your gut to have more fattening bacteria by killing the probiotic and lean boosting bacteria.

So only taking antibiotics if you really need them; and getting your protein from nuts and wild caught fish and animals that eat their natural diets only and only are given antibiotics when actually sick, also nets you out less fattening bacteria.

8.  Cravings for fattening foods also have been found to go up if you focus on how good they taste.  But if you focus instead on the facts that they are harmful and fattening and enrich the providers at your expense, they are MUCH easier to turn down!