Reducing the risk of Obesity is one of the health benefits that can be achieved by limiting our food intake. A new study in mice suggests that the weight can pile back on when the diet ends.
Scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and the Chinese Academy of Sciences believe they have found the cause of the change in metabolism.
When mice were put through 10 different diet protocols, they were shown to increase in their guts once their fast was over and they were reintroduced to a less restricted diet. The researchers found that the change in the gut's microbiome helped it absorb more fat.
It's likely that the same process happens in the guts of humans, and periods of intermittent fasting or controlling calories encourages the gut to extract more fat from our diet, making it more likely for weight to be regained.
The researchers wrote in their paper that weight regain after diet is still a challenge.
"Here we show that re-feeding after various types of diet causes quick fat build up in mice and increases the amount of fat in the body."
Increased levels of gut Lactobacillus resulted in changes in the chemical makeup of the gut, which has been linked to weight gain.
The researchers found that a high-protein diet restricted the growth of the Lactobacillus, thus limiting the amount of fat that was accumulated, in a study that looked at how to stop the weight from coming back after a diet.
The team found that the composition of the food they ate was more important than the amount of calories in it.
According to the researchers, feeding with a high-protein diet after diet prevents fat massAccumulation and even partially maintains the fat-loss effect.
More research is needed to find out if high-protein foods can help keep the weight off after a diet.
It's a target for researchers to know that there's a possibility of an increase in the ability to absorb fat in the gut. Many people struggle with their weight loss because of a fundamental shift in their gut flora.
Another finding from the current study is that penicillin treatment could be used to prevent weight gain after diet and exercise.
"Determining whether a high-protein diet has similar positive outcomes in individuals who seek to keep weight off will be the most clinically impactful next experiment," wrote a gastroenterologist who wasn't involved in the research.
The research was published in a journal.
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