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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2007;297:352-353.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

While simple calculation of the numbers of calories consumed and expended often explains weight loss and gain, new research suggests that intestinal microbes may also play a role in the regulation of body weight (Ley RE et al. Nature. 2006;444:1022-1023;Turnbaugh PJ et al. Nature. 2006;444:1027-1031).

Two divisions of beneficial bacteria—Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes—reside in the gut, and the balance of the two seems to be important in determining an individual's propensity for obesity.

Through comparisons of the gut microbes of genetically obese mice and their lean littermates, as well as those of obese and lean human volunteers, scientists from the Center for Genome Sciences and the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University, in St Louis, Mo, found an association between obesity and an increased relative abundance of Firmicutes compared with Bacteroidetes. Furthermore, in humans, the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes increased as obese individuals lost weight, an . . . [Full Text of this Article]