Energy balance
Gut microbiota composition influences body weight and metabolic health by increasing energy harvest from diet and modulating host fat storage pathways, with obese individuals harboring microbiota that extract more energy from the same diet than lean individuals.
Your gut bacteria act like an external organ that determines how many calories you absorb from food. While you cannot directly see them, their composition affects your weight. Strategies that alter gut flora (like high-fiber diets or specific prebiotics) may help manage weight by changing how efficiently your body extracts energy from food, rather than just reducing intake.
The presence of microbiota in itself apparently increased the energy yield from the host organism’s diet... colonisation of young germ-free mice with microbiota from conventionally reared mice produces a 60% increase in body fat mass that is associated with increased insulin resistance, despite lower energy intake.
Why this rating
Evidence is strong in animal models (germ-free mice, fecal transplants) but explicitly stated as 'remains to be tested in the human setting' for causal mechanisms, though observational human data supports the association.
Source
The environment within: how gut microbiota may influence metabolism and body composition
A. Vrieze et al. · Diabetologia · 2010
DOI 10.1007/s00125-010-1662-7
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