Human gut microbes associated with obesity (original) (raw)

Microbial ecology

Nature volume 444, pages 1022–1023 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Two groups of beneficial bacteria are dominant in the human gut, the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes. Here we show that the relative proportion of Bacteroidetes is decreased in obese people by comparison with lean people, and that this proportion increases with weight loss on two types of low-calorie diet. Our findings indicate that obesity has a microbial component, which might have potential therapeutic implications.

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Figure 1: Correlation between body-weight loss and gut microbial ecology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, 63108, Missouri, USA
    Ruth E. Ley, Peter J. Turnbaugh, Samuel Klein & Jeffrey I. Gordon

Authors

  1. Ruth E. Ley
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  2. Peter J. Turnbaugh
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  3. Samuel Klein
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  4. Jeffrey I. Gordon
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Corresponding author

Correspondence toJeffrey I. Gordon.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Ley, R., Turnbaugh, P., Klein, S. et al. Human gut microbes associated with obesity.Nature 444, 1022–1023 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/4441022a

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Editorial Summary

Inside story

Our gut microbes do us a service by performing metabolic chores that we have not evolved to do for ourselves. In a sense their genes are part of the 'metagenome' that is Homo sapiens. That is illustrated by two related papers in this issue that present evidence for a microbial component to obesity. A study of the abundance of the two dominant groups of bacteria in the gut of obese individuals shows that increased numbers of Bacteroidetes bacteria correlate with weight loss. And a study of genetically obese mice reveals that their gut microbial community has a greater capacity for harvesting energy than that of lean littermates: the trait is transmissible by transplanting the community into germ-free mice. This work suggests that the gut microbiome associated with obesity might be a biomarker and possibly a therapeutic target.

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