Over time the cause of obesity has been liked to a massive intake of calories popularly referred to as fat but recently scientists have deduced that gut bacteria and its interactions with immune cells and metabolic organs, including fat tissue also causes obesity.
This fact was deduced after a series of studies over the past decade which confirmed that the microbes living in our gut are one of the causes of obesity in the human body most especially that of a child.
Our gut plays a prominent role in the various system in our body, including satiety, hunger and, digestion through numerous mechanism, according to reports our guts has within it over 100 trillion microbes, collectively known as the gut microbiota, which none look exactly the same in the body of various humans, all microbiomes are a product of what we inherit, during birth from our mothers, our diet and environment.
Hundreds of these microbes in the human genome predisposes us to obesity which in turn increases the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and type2 diabetes of which are the highest increasing aliment in the world today.
In a study by scientists involving twins, it showed that obesity has a heritability rate, how much variation In traits is caused by variation in genes rather than the environment. Purna Kashyap, an associate professor at the Mayo Clinic and head of Gut Microbiome laboratory said ’’
What we eat is available to us and to the bacteria inside our guts which digest parts of food we lack the enzymes to do, this process generates additional calories that the gut give back to us’’.
This is only beneficial to the human body when food isn’t plentiful but when it is, more fat is induced into the system.
In a report by scientists at the Wake Forest Baptist Health Center childhood obesity is linked to gut bacteria, ‘’the microbes living in our gut are not only associated with obesity but also are one of the causes ‘’ said Hariom Yadav, the lead author of the review and assistant professor of molecular medicine at Wake Forest School of medicine.
The review stated that a mother’s health, diet, birth method (natural or cesarean) and feeding method affects the risk of obesity in her child. A mother’s obesity and diabetes contribute to the gut bacterias that causes obesity in children, facts are, mothers with obesity and diabetes have increased expression of harmful genes in reproductive cells including the ovum, that are imprinted and passed to their offspring ,these harmful bacterias passes through the placental connecting the child to the mother.
Mothers with obesity after birth also pass harmful metabolites made up of fat through breast milk.
The research also denoted that babies born by C-section do have a higher risk of developing childhood obesity unlike babies who are vaginally delivered because, the gut microbiome of babies born vaginally harbour the bacteria of maternal birth canal and vagina, which are typically beneficial bacteria while the gut microbiome of babies born through c-section is relatively populated by bacteria from the maternal skin.
Therefore, it is important that a mother eat and exercise right to keep her baby healthy. The various studies have indicated that obesity occurrence in some people is as a result of how much fat these gut bacteria carries in the enzymes realized into the body. These bacterias in the human gut are the reason why some people struggle to lose weight despite following all their weight loss plans and people that eat the same way the obese people eat are still slim.
However, scientists have been licensed to startup research to find a way to slow down the secretion of fat by these gut bacteria to reduce the level of obesity in society. A spoke person of the researchers said ‘’The microbiome is changeable, we can modify it. if we can figure out how gut bacteria is driving it, we should be able to target it at multiple levels, which will have an impact on the treatment of obesity.’’ The success of this research could be the end of obesity.
