Research

Hormonal

Administration of specific probiotic strains (e.g., Lactobacillus gasseri BNR17, L. acidophilus La5, Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12) and prebiotics (e.g., inulin-type fructans) reduces abdominal visceral fat, body weight, and fasting plasma glucose in overweight or obese individuals.

If you are overweight with visceral fat, adding specific probiotic strains (like L. gasseri or B. lactis) or prebiotics (like inulin) to your daily diet for at least 12 weeks can help reduce belly fat and improve blood sugar control. This works best when combined with a healthy diet, as the bacteria help regulate satiety hormones.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In the active FM group, abdominal visceral and subcutaneous fat areas significantly (P < 0.01) decreased from baseline by an average of 4.6 and 3.3%, respectively... Body weight and other measures also decreased significantly (P < 0.001) as follows: body weight, 1.4%; BMI, 1.5%; waist, 1.8%; and hip, 1.5%.
Mingqian He et al. · Cell & Bioscience · 2017

Why this rating

The paper reviews multiple randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in humans showing statistically significant improvements, though sample sizes vary.

Source

Gut microbiota as a potential target of metabolic syndrome: the role of probiotics and prebiotics

Mingqian He et al. · Cell & Bioscience · 2017

DOI 10.1186/s13578-017-0183-1

narrative_reviewCited 328×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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