Chinese scientists have identified bacteria that can cause obesity, and believe that diets that affect the presence of microbes in the human body can fight this disease.
Researchers in Shanghai found that mice that had been bred resistant to obesity, received injections with a specific kind of human bacterium and ate plentifully, began to weigh much more than normal.
Obesity is caused by a bacterium known as enterobacter. In any case, scientists from Jiaotong University in Shanghai came to this conclusion, having discovered it in large quantities in the intestines of an obese person.
The patient lost more than 30 kg in nine weeks after he was put on a diet of "whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal products and prebiotics." The diet allowed to reduce the number of bacteria in the intestines of the patient to an undetectable level.
One of the authors of the report, Zhao Liping, lost 20 kg in two years while on a diet of fermented probiotic products.
Researchers support the traditional Chinese belief that the gut is the "basis for human health," and hope to identify more such obesity-causing bacteria in human populations in future studies.
The prevalence of obesity has more than doubled worldwide since 1980, according to the World Health Organization. And according to statistics from 2008, more than 500 million adults worldwide suffer from this disease.
