Harness billions of friendly bacteria to manage your weight

Low carb, calorie counting, exercise tracking…if you struggle with your weight you’ll be pleased to hear there’s something else you can do to help you reach your health goals.

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Low carb, calorie counting, exercise tracking…if you struggle with your weight you’ll be pleased to hear there’s something else you can do to help you reach your health goals.

Probiotics are the new frontier of weight treatment. They boost the microbes living in your gut, and help to manage your weight. It might sound too good to be true, but it’s firmly underpinned by evidence from a clinical trial published in 2016.

Dr Anders Henriksson, researcher and senior scientist at DuPont working on dairy and dietary supplement products, says that if you’re overweight, your priority should be to balance your energy intake by maintaining a whole-foods diet of grains, fruits and vegetables; avoid processed, sugary foods and build plenty of exercise into your day. But there might be more that you can do.

If you’re overweight it may in part be due to an imbalanced gut microbiota with lower numbers of microbes that tend to be present at higher levels in lean people.

You may also be suffering from a leaky gut, which could result in certain molecules leaking into your blood, causing inflammation, which over time may lead to insulin resistance and weight gain.

Which brings us to the clinical trial led by the DuPont in Finland. The team wanted to know whether using a probiotic would control their body fat mass and inflammatory markers. If Bifidobacterium lactis 420™ (or B420™ for short) worked, it could offer an additional solution to people trying to manage their weight.

From 2013 to 2015, they recruited 225 overweight and obese but otherwise healthy adults and randomly assigned them to four different groups for a six-month study. They were to continue their normal lifestyle with the addition of drinking a daily smoothie, which was supplemented with sachets containing a different mix of active ingredients or placebo for each group.

One had a placebo, which is also known as an inactive substance. The second had the B420™ probiotic. The third group took a dietary fibre named Litesse™ Ultra (LU) and the fourth had a mix of B420™ and LU.

The study was double-blinded, meaning that neither the researchers nor the participants knew who was taking what.

A randomised controlled trial like this is used to compare the safety and effectiveness of nutritional treatments. The random group assignment and the double-blinding help avoid bias, and comparing treatment options against a placebo demonstrates whether any of them are better than doing nothing at all. So, did B420™ help to control weight gain?

Like many of us, most people gradually gain weight over time. In the study, those taking the placebo did just that, gaining about a kilo during the trial. But the men and women taking B420™ were bucking the trend.

The people in B420™ groups were able to control their body fat mass, particularly in the abdominal region. Their waistlines was 2.4cm smaller than that in the placebo group and they were able to control their weight. Their food intake dropped by about 300 calories per day as they ate less fibre and dietary fat. They exhibited signs of better gut barrier function and tendency towards lower levels of inflammation. Their microbiome had also changed.

‘We know the importance of a healthy weight but it’s very hard for some people to maintain that, despite their best efforts,’ says Dr Henriksson. ‘Results from this trial suggest that B420™ can help us maintain a healthy body weight, waist measurements and food intake. Hence, we would have an additional tool to use in our efforts to maintain a healthy body weight. From a research and development perspective, this is a really exciting area and I think we have much more to do in the future’ adds Dr Henriksson.

This article is sponsored by DuPont

B420™ is a trademark of DuPont. B420™ for weight management is among latest innovation in the premium line of HOWARU™ DuPont™ Danisco™ probiotics. Each of the probiotics are designed to help users live their best lives. As with all DuPont Nutrition and Health products, probiotics and fibers are manufactured to the highest quality standards, and are tested rigorously. DuPont is a world leader in applying market-driven science and innovation to solutions for the food, beverage and dietary supplement industries.