How Probiotics Can Help You Lose Weight and Belly Fat
Some probiotic strains may help support weight loss and provide other health benefits, including to your heart, immune system, and digestive system.
Some probiotic strains may help support weight loss and provide other health benefits, including to your heart, immune system, and digestive system.
Probiotics are live microorganisms that have health benefits when eaten
They’re found in both supplements and fermented foods.
Probiotics may help your defense system work better and improve the health of your digestive system and heart, among other things.
There is also evidence that probiotics can help you lose weight and belly fat.
Gut bugs may affect how the body controls weight.
Your gut system is home to hundreds of microorganisms.
The vast majority of these are good bacteria that make important nutrients, like vitamin K and some B vitamins.
Also, they help your body break down fiber, which it can’t process, into good short-chain fatty acids like butyrate.
Bacteroidetes and firmicutes are the two main groups of good bacteria in the gut. The balance of these two groups of germs seems to be linked to body weight.
Studies on both people and animals have shown that people who are moderately overweight or obese have different gut bacteria than people who are overweight or obese.
Most of those studies found that obese people had more firmicutes and fewer bacteroidetes than people who were a healthy weight.
Several studies, though, have not been able to find a link between the firmicutes-to-bacteroidetes ratio and being overweight.
Not as many different kinds of bacteria live in the guts of obese people as of lean people. Also, obese people who have less variety in their gut bacteria tend to gain more weight than obese people who have more variety in their gut bacteria.
Some tests on animals also found that when gut bacteria from fat mice were put into the guts of thin mice, the thin mice became fat.
How probiotics affect body weight
We still don’t fully understand how probiotics change body weight and belly fat.
Short-chain fatty acids like acetate, propionate, and butyrate are made by probiotics and seem to affect hunger and energy use.
Some probiotics may stop the body from absorbing fat from food, which means that more fat is passed out of the body with feces.
They “harvest” fewer calories from the food you eat, to use a technical term.
It has been found that some bacteria, like those in the Lactobacillus family, work in this way.
There are other ways that probiotics may help fight fat, such as:
Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and peptide YY (PYY), two hormones that control hunger, may be released more easily when you take probiotics. Having more of these chemicals may help you burn fat and calories.
Increasing the amount of proteins that control fat: The protein angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPTL4) may be raised by probiotics. This could mean less fat stores.
There is strong proof that being overweight causes inflammation all over the body. By keeping the lining of your gut healthy, probiotics may lower inflammation throughout your body and help keep you from getting fat and other diseases.
We need to do more study to fully understand these mechanisms.
Probiotics may help you lose weight and belly fat
Good studies on probiotics and weight loss in overweight and obese people were recently reviewed. The results show that probiotics can help you drop weight and lower your body fat percentage.
The Lactobacillus family has some types that have been shown to help people lose weight and belly fat.
In one study, people who ate yogurt with Lactobacillus fermentum or Lactobacillus amylovorus had 3–4% less body fat after 6 weeks.
Another study looked at how Lactobacillus rhamnosus supplements helped 125 overweight people lose weight and keep it off.
Over 3 months, the women who took the probiotics lost 50% more weight than the women who took a fake pill. They kept losing weight even during the part of the study where they kept their weight steady.
For 12 weeks, 114 overweight people were given either the probiotic Lactobacillus sakei or a sugar pill. The study was well-designed. People who took the probiotic saw big drops in both their body fat percentage and their waist size.
Lactobacillus gasseri
L. gasseri is one of the probiotic bacteria that has been studied the most and shows some of the most promising weight loss results. A lot of tests on rodents have shown that it can help fight obesity.
Also, studies on adults have shown positive effects.
One study that tracked 210 people with a lot of belly fat found that taking Lactobacillus gasseri for 12 weeks lowered their body weight, body mass index (BMI), waist size, and hip width.
Besides that, 8.5% less belly fat was lost. But as soon as the people stopped taking the probiotic, they put on all of their belly fat again within a month.
Other strains
There are other types of probiotics that might also help you lose weight and belly fat.
In an 8-week study, overweight or obese women either took a probiotic with types of both Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium or a sugar pill. They also changed what they ate.
People who took the probiotic lost a lot more belly fat than people who took a fake drug.
In a different study of 135 people with a lot of belly fat, those who took Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis every day for three months lost a lot more belly fat and had lower BMI and waist size than those who took a placebo.
These results were especially pronounced in women
Several types of probiotics from the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium families have been shown to help people lose weight and belly fat.It looks like Lactobacillus gasseri is one of the best.
Some probiotics may prevent weight gain
To fight obesity, you can do more than just lose weight. Stopping yourself from gaining weight in the first place might be even more helpful than losing weight.
People in a 4-week study who were on a diet that gave them 1,000 extra calories a day gained less weight and fat when they took a probiotic mixture called VSL#3.
People who were in the probiotic group added less fat, but their metabolism or insulin sensitivity didn’t change much.
This means that some types of probiotics might help people who are on a high-calorie diet keep their weight off. But this needs to be looked into more.
Some probiotic strains may increase the risk of weight gain and obesity
Not all studies have found that probiotics aid weight loss.
Some studies have shown that some types of probiotics may make people gain weight instead of lose it.
A new study found that the effects of probiotics on body weight depend on the species and strains that are used. One strain of Lactobacillus gasseri, for example, stopped weight gain compared to a control group, while another strain made weight gain happen.
