Culprit Behind Post Dieting Weight Regain Revealed

For the 45 million Americans each year who are making vain attempts to battle the bulge must know the connection between microbes in the gut and weight regain. Researchers have found the true culprit  behind yo-yo dieting and pinned it to gut microbes.

According to Medical News Today, a recent study has revealed the role of gut microbes in assisting in long-term weight loss. This is a great piece of news for the nearly one out of three adults and one in six children who are battling the obesity epidemic.

The study published in the journal Nature was led by the team from Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Study co-author Eran Elinav and his team found that nearly 80 percent of those who lost weight with dieting will get back their lost weight. Many of them put on all the lost weight in just a matter of months.

Such yo-yo dieting or weight cycling poses severe health risks, even grave ones such as cardiovascular disease.

Role of Gut Microbes

The research team found that plenty of microorganisms in the intestine, called as gut microbes, are altered as a response to dieting.

Altered gut microbes accelerate weight regain. Researchers conducted a study on  rodents to find that weight recycling in them altered the levels of gut microbes, Nature World News reported.

"As observed in recurrently dieting humans, a preceding obesity-weight loss cycle rendered mice susceptible to accelerated secondary weight gain, even after fully returning to baseline weight," study authors said.

Flavonoids' Magic

A detailed probe revealed that when microbes change, they reduce the levels of flavonoids, typically two types, apigenin and naringenin. These flavonoids promote good health.

When flavonoids reduce, it seems to disrupt the expression of an important gene, UCP-1. This gene seems to influence energy expenditure in the body.

This may be the reason why weight recycling and alteration in levels of gut microbes leads to weight regain.

So, does the answer lie in the flavonoids that can be introduced in the system to help in long -term weight loss?