January 10, 2018 Wiggy Saunders

Probiotics May Help You Lose Weight?

Did you know the size of your belly, thighs, and other parts of your body may be tied to the amount of bacteria in your body?

The truth is, as we study probiotics more and more, we’ve come to find they might be directly linked to your weight.

And by getting probiotics into your body, you might be able to lose weight in a way you never have before.

Which is funny when you think about it...because 20 years ago it’s unlikely any of you reading this would have gone out of your way to get some extra bacteria in your diet. And you would surely have thought bacteria would make you gain weight, as opposed to helping you lose it.

But as our research into the human gut biome has expanded over the years, our understanding of how beneficial bacteria serve our body has also expanded.

And it’s this understanding of beneficial bacteria which has led to the explosion of products with probiotics in them.

You’ve likely seen this in your grocery store.

Yogurts float the name and numbers of the bacteria inside.

There are beverages loaded with these microscopic health crusaders.

And of course there are supplements that’ll introduce billions of bacteria into your belly.

Since there are so many probiotic rich products out there, you ought to see how they could help you lose weight.

Studies Show Probiotics May Help Create Weight Loss

The reason probiotics ever became popular in the first place is because researchers observed they serve a very important functional role in digestion.

One of the ways they help digestion is by helping the body break down food, converting that food into usable nutrients.

Not to mention, healthy gut bacteria will keep unhealthy gut bacteria levels in check, which helps improve immune function and simultaneously helps to reduce the body’s inflammatory response.

These are the general reasons to have probiotics in your diet and the ones most people are familiar with when they’ve concluded they want to take probiotics to improve their health.

But it turns out there’s quite a bit of evidence supporting the idea that by taking probiotics you can actually lose weight.

Evidence Shows Overweight People Need Probiotic Support

First, let’s talk about a few observational studies supporting the claim that probiotics may help you lose weight.

In general, probiotics are broken down into two different types: bacteroidetes and firmicutes. It’s our understanding that when these two types of probiotics are balanced, a person’s weight stays stable and healthy.

When a person has more firmicutes and fewer bacteroidetes they tend to be overweight.

In several studies, both human and animal, we’ve seen that people who are overweight have more firmicutes (AKA bad bacteria) than bacteroidetes.

Seeking to understand how these bacteria affect weight, researchers have performed transplants where they’ve taken the gut bacteria from overweight mice and transplanted them into the guts of normal weight mice.

In almost every instance, the normal weight mice would begin to become overweight. This supports the thinking the absence of good gut bacteria will cause a subject to gain weight.

They May Also Prevent Your Body From Hanging Onto Fat

Remember, dietary fat isn’t always a bad thing...but the fact remains that if you consume more calories in a day than you burn, you will gain weight.

This is one way probiotics may help you lose weight.

Studies have shown probiotics might keep your body from absorbing more fat than it needs to. This essentially keeps your body from tacking on those extra calories and may help keep you slim and trim.

There’s also research that shows probiotics might influence your body’s hormones to prevent fat from sticking to you.

Research shows this happens in two different ways.

The first is by bumping up the production of a hormone known as GLP-1. When GLP-1 goes up, not only will it help you feel full longer, we also believe it might affect your metabolism, so you burn more calories daily.

The other way probiotics might help is by increasing the protein ANGPTL4. From what we’ve observed, increases in ANGPTL4 have been shown to decrease on-site fat storage...which helps keep you lean.

They May Help “Kill” Belly Fat

The probiotics most well known for this feat are from the Lactobacillus family.

As HealthLine writes:

"In one study, eating yogurt with Lactobacillus fermentum or Lactobacillus amylovorus reduced body fat by 3–4% over a 6-week period.

Another study of 125 overweight dieters investigated the effects of Lactobacillus rhamnosus supplements on weight loss and weight maintenance.

During a 3-month study period, the women taking the probiotics lost 50% more weight compared to the group taking a dummy pill (placebo). They also continued to lose weight during the weight maintenance phase of the study.

Of all the probiotic bacteria studied to date, Lactobacillus gasseri shows the most promising effects on weight loss. Numerous studies in rodents have found that it has anti-obesity effects.

Additionally, studies in Japanese adults have shown impressive results

One study followed 210 people with a lot of belly fat. It found that taking Lactobacillus gasseri for 12 weeks reduced body weight, fat around organs, BMI, waist size and hip circumference.

What's more, belly fat was reduced by 8.5%. However, when participants stopped taking the probiotic, they gained back all of the belly fat within a month."

Fight Inflammation, Fight Weight Gain

Probiotics also have a natural ability to help the body fight inflammation, which in turn can help you keep weight off.

The way this works is when probiotics are absent in the body, the body often has a difficult time digesting food. As this undigested food is passed down the digestive tract, not fully deconstructed, it is often identified by the immune system as an unhealthy invader.

When that happens, the body activates the immune system and attacks it. While these immune attacks are only supposed to be temporary, a continued lack of probiotic material may mean the immune system is turned on more or less permanently.

This creates inflammation...and long-lasting inflammation often results in disruptions in how your body processes blood sugar, which frequently leads to weight gain.

That’s why if you can establish a healthy digestive system using probiotics, you may begin to lose weight.

Where You Should Get Your Probiotics?

Without a doubt the #1 place to get probiotics is from diet.

Fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, yogurts (goat), kefir (goat), and kombucha are, among others, superior sources of probiotic material.

But as you know, getting all the probiotics you need by diet alone can be tough.

This is where supplements come in.

To help out our patients, my team and I have developed our very own probiotic.

This is one of the highest strength probiotics on the planet.

With 10 strains and over 25 billion units per capsule, taking this supplemental probiotic delivers a clinically effective dose of health boosting probiotics.

You can get yours in our store...or right here.

One of the most popular supplements we carry, try it out for yourself and see how it helps you.