Probiotics can effectively improve obesity caused by a high-fat diet

The word probiotic may be no stranger to you. As a class of active microorganisms that have beneficial effects on host health, many yogurts, beverages and infant formula currently on the market add probiotics, and clinically, probiotic drugs are also widely used to treat symptoms such as diarrhea, constipation and indigestion caused by intestinal microbiome disorders. Researchers are actively exploring the role of probiotics in digestive tract inflammation, allergies and metabolic syndrome.Recently, Dr. Shen Jian of Shanghai Jiaotong University's Institute of Systemic Biomedical Research, and Wang Jingjing, the first author of the article , "Probiotics in improving the metabolic syndrome of mice on a high-fat diet in the process of regulating the gut microbiome" published in the International Society for Microbiological Ecology, "
ISME Journal
" (impact factor
8.951
). The work is the result of a collaboration between Professor Zhao Liping of the Institute of Systems Biomedical Research and the Danon Research Center in France and
Tufts
university in the United States. The researchers gave
3,
groups of mice who ate high-fat feed a sub-cheese strain of lactobacillus, a strain of lactobacillus lipos and an animal strain of Bifidobacteria, and found that these probiotics improved the symptoms of metabolic syndrome induced by a high-fat diet (obesity) Insulin resistance and fatty liver) also regulated the intestinal bacteria structure of these mice, reducing the amount of bacteria positively related to disease indicators, and increasing the number of bacteria negatively related to disease indicators, suggesting that probiotics may be improving high-fat diet-induced metabolic syndrome by regulating bacterial structure.previous studies have identified types of gut bacteria in mice with probiotic-altering metabolic syndrome, it is still unclear which of these bacteria may have mediated the improvement of probiotics in metabolic syndrome. Using relevant analysis, this study identified specific gut bacteria with positive and negative correlation with disease indicators. Many of the
15,
bacterial groups negatively related to disease indicators are beneficial bacteria capable of producing short-chain fatty acids, protecting the intestinal barrier or fighting inflammation, of which
13,
were raised by probiotics. Of the
34,
bacterial groups that are positively related to disease indicators, many are opportonic pathogenic or potentially harmful bacteria with anti-inflammatory effects, of which
26
are reduced by probiotics. These changes in "key functional bacteria" may have mediated the beneficial effects of probiotics on host health.The study also found that three probiotics were "strain-specific" in improving different symptoms of metabolic syndrome, i.e., two strains of Lactobacillus probiotics specifically increased the amount of acetic acid in the intestines, while one strain of Bifidobacteria specifically reduced the amount of antigen produced by the gut microbiota entering the host circulatory system, as well as the expression of
TNF-
α, an inflammatory factor in the liver and adipose tissue. Correspondingly, the specificity of probiotic disease indicators is also reflected in their changes to the "critical functional bacteria" in the intestines, for example, two strains of Lactobacillus increased the production of more acetic acid bacteria in the intestines of animals, while the specificity of the animal Bifidobacteria strains increased the intestinal barrier function and anti-inflammatory genus Bifidobacteria. These results further suggest that regulating bacteriobial structure may be one of the mechanisms by which probiotics improve metabolic syndrome.This work, based on a single probiotic strain, provides a useful reference for clarifying the rationale for probiotics to improve metabolic syndrome, provides basic data for the development of a more effective "hybrid probiotic" formula, and provides a theoretical basis for clinical intervention of probiotics in people with metabolic syndrome.