World Obesity Day, observed on March 4 every year, aims to raise awareness about the growing epidemic of obesity and its impact on individuals, communities, and global health. This day serves as a reminder to take action against this preventable and treatable condition that affects millions of people worldwide. It highlights the need for individuals to adopt healthy lifestyle habits such as regular exercise and a balanced diet to prevent obesity. However, in this article, we have discussed about the gut microbiome and its role in obesity.
What is the gut microbiome?
According to Dr Sanjay Verma, Director, Minimal Access, GI and Bariatric Surgery, Fortis Escorts, Okhla Road, New Delhi, the gut microbiota affects appetite, energy absorption, fat storage, circadian rhythm, and chronic inflammation, leading to obesity. Therefore, targeted reconstruction of the gut microbiota structure, such as through faecal bacterial transplantation, is one of the means of treating obesity.
The gut bacteria help break down food. Some bacteria are better able to chop food into those smallest pieces that get digested, add calories to our body and thereby tend to increase our weight. The human body is host to a vast number of microbes, including bacterial, fungal and protozoal microorganisms, which together constitute our microbiota.
How gut microbiome is linked to obesity?
Obesity and obesity-related metabolic disorders are characterised by specific alterations in the composition and function of the human gut microbiome.
Emerging as possible strategies for obesity prevention and/or treatment are targeting the microbiota, to restore or modulate its composition through the consumption of live bacteria (probiotics), nondigestible or limited digestible food constituents such as oligosaccharides (prebiotics), or both (synbiotics), or even faecal transplants.
Other probiotics shown to have anti-obesity effects include the plant-derived lactic acid bacterium, Pediococcus pentosaceus LP28, Bacteroides uniformis CECT and Akkermansia muciniphil. Gut microbiota has an important role in regulating weight and may be partly responsible for the development of obesity in some people.
Microbial manipulation may be employed to prevent or treat weight gain and associated comorbidities. Approaches to this include the use of probiotics.
The altered gut microbiota putatively participates in the pathogenesis of obesity via multiple mechanisms, including energy homeostasis disruption, lipid synthesis and storage, central appetite and feeding behaviour regulation, as well as chronic low-grade inflammation.
Underpinned the augmenting importance of the gut microbiota in obesity. Gut microbiota alterations affect the energy balance of the host organism; namely, as a factor affecting energy production from the diet and as a factor affecting host genes regulating energy expenditure and storage.
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