I've been following some gross stuff in the news, particularly the emerging research going into the unmentionable colon that's full of...bacteria. Yea, I eat yogurt and will take a probiotic during the flu season but I never thought too much about it.
Then out of nowhere articles kept popping up. Gross stuff like fecal transplants! Cool stuff like strands of bacteria that supposedly eat calories for you in your colon which might explain why some people are a size 0 while killing a Big Mac. NPR had a little juicy number here, Diverse Gut Microbes, A Trim Waistline and Health Go Together. Basically, if you are at a healthy weight you'll have more good critters in your digestive track.
From NPR:
"When looking just at the obese people in the study, the scientists found the people with the least bacterial diversity were likelier than those with a greater variety of microbes to keep gaining weight during the nine years the researchers kept track.
Perhaps even more surprising and important: People who had less microbial diversity — whatever their weight — were more likely to have a variety of risk factors for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Those risk factors included insulin resistance and inflammation.
'Even lean people who are poor in bacterial species have a higher risk of developing these pathologies,' Ehrlich says."
