MEDI WATCH

Fat-burning bacteria

An excess of one of the major intestinal bacteria may encourage obesity, according to two studies, using mice and humans. Most of the 100,000 million bacteria in the gut are firmicutes or bacteroidetes, which help break down food. Obese people tend to have relatively fewer of the latter and more of the former, which seem to help extract more calories from food, AFP reports. In Washington University studies, lean mice given a boost of firmicutes got twice as fat. In another study, dieting boosted the relative levels of bacteroidetes in people from 3 per cent to 15 per cent.

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