Appetite-suppressing probiotic helps overweight people lose weight

Carissa Wong is a person.

Weight loss can be aided by an experimental probiotic.

Administering the gut bacterium Hafnia alvei can help obese mice lose weight, according to previous studies. A molecule called ClpB is produced by the probiotic.

The researchers presented their findings at the Targeting Microbiota conference in Paris last week.

A group of people with an overweight body mass index were counseled by the researchers on how to cut calories. If your weight is healthy, your body mass index is used to calculate it. The participants were told to keep up their activity levels.

Half of the participants took a pill twice a day. The placebo was taken twice daily. The people in the two groups were the same height and weight.

55 percent of people who took the probiotic lost at least 3 percent of their body weight, compared with 41 percent who took the placebo.

Losing 3 percent of body weight can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The researchers found that the people who took the probiotic had lower blood sugar levels than those who took a placebo. There were no people with type 2 diabetes.

The people who took the probiotic felt more satisfied in the first two and three months of the experiment, compared with those who didn't.

If H. alvei caused people to feel more full, they would eat less. The researchers don't know how fat is broken down.

Adle Rakotonirina is a researcher at the University ofGeneva, Switzerland. If you want to make a therapy against weight gain, this could be helpful.

Rakotonirina says that people are different depending on their genetics. She says that a personalized approach would be needed to prescribe probiotics.