The Role of the Manipulation of the Gut Microbiota in Obesity
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INTRA-ABDOMINAL INFECTIONS, HEPATITIS, AND GASTROENTERITIS (DA BOBAK, SECTION EDITOR)
The Role of the Manipulation of the Gut Microbiota in Obesity Matthieu Million & Didier Raoult
Published online: 6 November 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract The manipulation of the gut microbiota by diet, antibiotics, or probiotics could promote, prevent, or reverse the development of specific diseases, including obesity. A link has been proposed between obesity and the growth promoters (probiotics and antibiotics) that have been used in animals for more than 40 years to induce weight gain. Several species of the Lactobacillus genus that are frequently used as probiotics for human consumption merit particular attention because they are increased in the gut microbiota under high-fat diets, are more abundant in obese humans, and are selected by growth-promoter antibiotics; moreover, the administration of these bacteria in experimental models is linked to the development of obesity. However, other species or strains of the same genus are associated with an antiobesity effect. Newborns and infants are a particularly susceptible population in which the administration of antibiotics or probiotics could be related to the development of obesity in adulthood. Keywords Gut microbiota . Manipulation . Obesity . Weight . Antibiotics . Probiotics . Lactobacillus . Bifidobacterium . Weight gain . Weight loss . Newborns . Bacteria . Diet . Meta-analysis . Enterotypes M. Million : D. Raoult (*) Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales Emergentes, CNRS UMR 7278, IRD 198, Faculté de Médecine, Aix-Marseille Université, 27 Bd Jean Moulin, 13005 Marseille, France e-mail: [email protected] M. Million e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction One of the strangest phenomena that one of us (D.R.) has observed in his career, which has included the writing of over 1,500 scientific papers, is the lack of scientific communication between fields. Gut microbiota manipulation is an extreme example of this phenomenon [1, 2]: Despite the widespread manipulation of the gut microbiota in farm animals in all industrialized countries to induce weight gain in these animals (e.g., pigs, calves, and chickens) [3, 4], this practice has been neglected for a long time in the field of medicine [5]. The manipulation of the gut microbiota is achieved in farm animals not only through the use of low doses of antibiotics, but also through probiotics administration, including mainly Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, and Enterococcus species. During the course of our work on Lactobacillus ingluviei [6], we serendipitously discovered that this bacterium induced significant weight gain in chickens [7]. These findings were supported by similar studies of ducks and mice [8, 9]. We believe that this discovery provided the first indications to the scientific community of the existence of a possible link between growth promoters (probiotics and antibiotics) and the current epidemic of obesity [1, 5]. This work has led to vehem
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