Is your gut health contributing to your weight gain?

In this post, I’m going to take a brief look at an interesting bug called Akkermansia— Sounds like it could be the fifth house at Hogwarts 🙄

Nope. It’s a bug found in the gut and was named after a Dutch microbiologist. Okay, but what does this have to do with your weight gain and metabolic health?

Well, researchers have found that Akkermansia munciphilia has a direct relationship to obesity, in particular the absence or decrease of this bug seems to be an issue:

One study demonstrated that the abundance of A. muciniphila decreased in obese and type 2 diabetic mice. The same study found that prebiotic feeding normalized A. muciniphila abundance, which correlated with an improved metabolic profile.

Is it possible that increasing the amounts of this bug alone could actually significantly impact your metabolism and weight?

Yep, this same study demonstrated that A. muciniphila treatment reversed high-fat diet-induced metabolic disorders, including fat-mass gain, metabolic endotoxemia (fancy name for your guts ability to decrease the reabsorption of toxins in your gut, which is actually a significant issue in metabolic diseases), and insulin resistance.

Hard to believe that the absence of a single bug can have such a significant impact on your weight and metabolism.

Gut issues, inflammation and immune function

Poor diversity of the gut ecosystem and a variety of these healthy bacteria will impact the function of your intestinal walls. We know that many of these bacteria help with the production of substances that keep the junctions between your gut cells nice and healthy.

With a lack of healthy bacteria we can see a degradation of the gut wall and once compromised you can start experiencing the movement of intestinal contents across this gut barrier leading to the activation of immune substances and of course an inflammatory state. This is commonly referred to as a leaky gut.

Also interesting to note the enrichment of A. muciniphila promotes microbial gene richness and microbial ecosystem abundance, so we see other bacteria including Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Euryarchaeota being supported and increased in the gut. We know that microbiome diversity is key not just for gut function but it may also be key in supporting the immune system.

Whenever weight issues are accompanied by autoimmune conditions taking a closer look at the microbiome can be very helpful there are a great deal of functional pathology tests that now look at microbiome mapping, giving you a clear indication of some of the key bugs ‘good’ and ‘bad’ at play in your digestive tract.

Losing weight

I can hear you asking “can I just take a probiotic?”

If only it was that easy, and there’s absolutely no shortage of shiny products on Instagram and Facebook claiming to be filled with these skinny bacteria that will transform your metabolism in just 30 days.

Please be mindful that we’re only at the very beginning of understanding the role of the microbiome in health, and as a naturopath the approach to supporting clients on this front goes well beyond a simple probiotic.

Tackling weight gain from multiple angles including looking at the cognitive patterns around food and eating. Addressing stress, vital for weight loss read more on this here. And this list goes on.

Meal planning and dietary counselling in addition to addressing the microbiome all come into play.

But how encouraging is it to know that if you’ve hit a wall with your weight loss and are feeling defeated there are options for you to address the more complex issues of gut, hormonal and metabolic functioning?

Don’t give up! You deserve to wake up every morning feeling happy, healthy and confident to face whatever the day has to throw at you.

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