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Why fat cats may be ally in the fight against human obesity – their guts are like ours
- Researchers put obese cats on a diet, and find the way microbes in their guts react could hold lessons for reducing obesity in humans
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Fat cats. They are great pets, internet famous and, according to a new study, possibly the next big thing in obesity research.
Published in Scientific Reports, the study discovered our feline friends could help scientists better understand gut microbiomes and how they affect obesity in people.
“Animals share our beds,” said lead study author Jenessa Winston, assistant professor of veterinary clinical sciences at Ohio State University in the United States. “They share our ice cream. There are all these things that people do with their pets that highlight they are a naturally occurring disease model with similar environmental exposures as humans.”
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In other words, because we live closely together, studying how cats react to disease treatments may help understand how humans might, also.
Veterinary researchers analysed waste samples – faeces – from fat cats as the felines lost weight through controlled dietary changes. The results revealed a striking similarity between cat and human gut microbiomes when it comes to food and how it affects microbes.
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