Research

Hormonal

Bariatric surgery (VSG and RYGB) improves metabolic health and promotes weight loss by altering gut microbiota to increase the production of specific metabolites (licoricidin and butyrate) that activate thermogenesis in adipose tissue.

Bariatric surgery's success is largely due to how it changes your gut bacteria to burn more fat, not just by making you eat less. This suggests that targeting gut health and metabolism could be key to treating obesity, potentially leading to new non-surgical treatments.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Jin et al and Yadav et al now provide two complementary lines of evidence suggesting that gut microbiota-derived metabolites after VSG and RYGB activate thermogenesis in fat through distinct mechanisms, to in turn promote weight loss and/or improvements in glycemic control.
Mohammed K. Hankir · Cell Stress · 2023

Why this rating

Based on two high-quality complementary studies (Jin et al., Yadav et al.) using mouse models and human stool transfer, though human clinical data on thermogenesis post-surgery is noted as missing.

Source

Gut microbiota turn up the heat after bariatric surgery

Mohammed K. Hankir · Cell Stress · 2023

DOI 10.15698/cst2023.10.290

narrative_reviewCited 2×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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