Research

Mixed

Higher pre-diet daily gut microbiota plasticity predicts greater 12-month sustained weight loss specifically in individuals following a low-fat diet, but not a low-carb diet.

If you are following a low-fat diet, your gut microbiome's ability to change day-to-day (plasticity) before you start may predict your success. Men with higher pre-diet plasticity lost more weight and adhered better. Women did not show this correlation. For low-carb diets, pre-diet plasticity was not a predictor of success, though plasticity *during* the first 10 weeks was higher in successful users. Do not rely on static microbiome tests to predict success; focus on adherence.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
subjects with higher sustained weight loss on a low-fat diet had higher pre-diet daily plasticity, whereas those most successful on the low-carb diet had greater microbiota plasticity over 10 weeks of dietary intervention.
Jessica A. Grembi et al. · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2019

Why this rating

Discovery cohort shows significance, but validation cohort failed to replicate due to sampling differences; sample size is modest.

Source

Gut microbiota plasticity is correlated with sustained weight loss on a low-carb or low-fat dietary intervention

Jessica A. Grembi et al. · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2019

DOI 10.1101/580217

preprint · n=122Cited 1×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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