Probiotic enhances weight loss, satiety, eating behaviour, and mood

Posted on Mon, 26 Mar 18

The addition of a probiotic to a personalised, supervised weight loss diet not only enhanced weight loss, but improved satiety, decreased food cravings, and enhanced mood. 

One of the challenges with weight loss diets is that people, especially those who are particularly overweight, will often “plateau” or exhibit resistance to weight loss. There are different theories as to why this might occur, including changes in metabolism and appetite regulation. 

A novel explanation is that gut bacteria might influence fat metabolism, appetite and eating behaviour, with some experimental evidence suggesting that the so called gut-brain axis might play a role. To try and uncover whether or not this is significant in human subjects researchers examined the effect of a probiotic on weight loss, mood and appetite. 

Men and women who were undergoing a personalised dietary weight-reducing program were given either a probiotic (L rhamnosus CGMCC1.3724) or placebo over a 12-week period. Women taking the probiotic not only had better weight loss, but reduced the desire to eat, food cravings, hunger and improved appetite control. There was also a decrease in depression scores, and improvement in body self-esteem.  

The probiotic was not as effective for men, but did improve fullness and cognitive restraint. 

“Taken together, these observations lend support to the hypothesis that the gut-brain axis may impact appetite control and related behaviours in obesity management,” concluded the study investigators. 

Reference: 

Sanchez M, Darimont C, Panahi S, et al. Effects of a Diet-Based Weight-Reducing Program with Probiotic Supplementation on Satiety Efficiency, Eating Behaviour Traits, and Psychosocial  Behaviours in Obese Individuals. Nutrients. 2017 Mar 15;9(3).