Obesity And The Gut Microbiota - 1694 Words

The gut microbiome supplies the human host with metabolic capabilities beyond those encoded by its own genome (Khan et al., 2014). Because host metabolism is effectively regulated by the amalgamation of host and microbial genes (Khan et al., 2014), we should expect the gut microbiota to play a fundamental role in the health of its host. A compendium of research evidence demonstrates a compelling link between obesity and gut microbial composition. The connection between obesity and the gut microbiota is illustrated in the effects of diet on microbial diversity, the association of host genotype with microbial plasticity, the correlation of microbial diversity and metabolic disease, and the modulation of host metabolism by gut†¦show more content†¦The main focus was to study the impact of the two different diets, control ad-libitum (CON-AL) and diet-induced obese weight reduced (DIO-WR) on microbial diversity because the two groups have the same body weight and composition, which allowed a direct comparison (Ravussin et al., 2012). There were many experiments done to assess the microbial communities in each of these different diets. Based on the results, the operational taxonomic unit differences gave the greatest indication of the diversity of phyla in the mice. Specifically, it was found that the Lachnospiraceae family, the Firmicutes phylum and the genera Bacteroides and Mucispirillum were enriched in the DIO-WR group, while Allobaculum was largely present in the CON-AL mice (Ravussin et al., 2012). Generally, it was found that mice eating a high fat diet or those that were diet-induced obese had greater abundances of many different bacterial phyla. The measurements of fat free mass showed significant differences between the subgroups’ diets. Another one of the major effects of the composition of gut microbiota is the mucin production of the intestine, which is in turn regulated by leptin concentrations (Ravussin et al., 2012) . The study fou nd that lower leptin concentrations in DIO-WR mice have a larger impact than the decrease in CON-WR mice (Ravussin et al., 2012). The several experiments performed by Ravussin et al. demonstrate a strong correlation