Are happy gut bacteria the key to weight loss? (Mother Jones)

[Glia]

Imbalances in the microbial community in your intestines may lead to metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes. What does science say about how to reset our bodies?
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff Mon Apr. 22, 2013 2:00 AM GMT

A few years before Super Size Me hit theaters in 2004, Dr. Paresh Dandona, a diabetes specialist in Buffalo, New York, set out to measure the body's response to McDonald's—specifically breakfast. Over several mornings, he fed nine normal-weight volunteers an egg sandwich with cheese and ham, a sausage muffin sandwich, and two hash brown patties.
Dandona is a professor at the State University of New York-Buffalo who also heads the Diabetes-Endocrinology Center of Western New York, and what he observed has informed his research ever since. Levels of a C-reactive protein, an indicator of systemic inflammation, shot up "within literally minutes." "I was shocked," he recalls, that "a simple McDonald's meal that seems harmless enough"—the sort of high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal that 1 in 4 Americans eats regularly—would have such a dramatic effect. And it lasted for hours. ...

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https://www.motherjones.com/environm...ht-loss?page=1

More MoJo coverage of bacteria and health:

• This Is Your Body on Microbes
• Should You Take a Probiotic?
• Poop Therapy: More Than You Probably Wanted to Know About Fecal Transplants
• Can Antibiotics Make You Fat?
• Antibiotics As Key to Curing Starvation
• Why You Shouldn't Take Antibiotics for a Sinus Infection