Gut microbes and obesity

Abstract

Metabolism A plethora of studies have uncovered correlations between gut microbiome composition and common disorders such as metabolic disease. The hope is that these correlations can be translated into therapies using mechanism-based approaches. An alternative approach is fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), a procedure in which gut microbiota from healthy donors are delivered to individuals who have, or are at risk of developing, a specific disorder. Yu et al. conducted a small, double-blind clinical trial to determine whether obese adults at risk of developing type 2 diabetes would benefit from oral FMT capsules derived from healthy, lean donors. After 3 months, they found durable microbial shifts in the recipients but no clinically meaningful changes in their metabolism or weight. PLOS Med. 17 , e1003051 (2020).