Review
Nutritional modulation of gut microbiota in the context of obesity and insulin resistance: Potential interest of prebiotics

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Abstract

Obesity in humans leads to changes in the composition of gut microbiota, some of those changes being reversed upon dieting and changes in dietary habits. The studies devoted to understand how gut microbes control host energy homeostasis are of interest, in order to estimate how specific nutrients that induce changes in gut microbiota composition and/or activity – such as prebiotics – could be relevant in the management of obesity and related disorders. This review presents the potential molecular mechanisms allowing the gut microbiota to control host energy homeostasis, and presents the potential mechanisms evoked in the improvement of obesity by colonic nutrients that target the gut microbiota. It also discusses the relevance of this new area of research in human nutrition and health.

Section snippets

Changes in gut microbiota composition occur upon obesity and related metabolic disorders

Obesity is associated with a cluster of metabolic disorders including glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, fibrinolysis disorders, epithelial dysfunction, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases, non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) (Eckel et al., 2005, Ogden et al., 2007). The adverse health consequences of weight gain and obesity are especially prominent following prolonged periods of positive

Gut microbiota participates to the regulation of host energy homeostasis

Evidence on the role of the gut microbiota on energy harvesting from the diet came from studies performed in germ-free mice (Bäckhed et al., 2004, Ley, 2009). Bäckhed et al. (2004) found that conventionally raised mice contained 40% more total body fat and 47% higher gonadal fat content than germ-free mice. Several pathways are proposed to explain that the presence of the gut microbiota drives the increase in fat mass – shown both in animals fed a standard carbohydrate-rich or a fat-rich diet (

Food components that modulate the gut microbiota have an impact on obesity and related disorders: the potential interest of prebiotics

In a series of experiments in mice fed a high-fat/carbohydrate free diet, we showed that such a dietary manipulation, leading to obesity and diabetes, changes bacterial populations in the intestinal microbiota, with a strong reduction in Bifidobacterium spp. numbers, a reduced Bacteroides-related bacteria, Eubacterium rectaleClostridium coccoides group content (Cani, Amar, et al., 2007a, Cani, Neyrinck, et al., 2007c). In those studies, we found that among the different gut bacteria analyzed,

Probiotics and prebiotics approach in the management of obesity and associated diseases in human

Even if the amount of relevant intervention studies remain scare in this field, namely due to the novelty of this concept, there are some data supporting the fact that both probiotic and prebiotic approaches could be interesting in the management of metabolic diseases associated with obesity. Interestingly, several physiological effects previously described in animals are also true when assessed upon mid term treatment with prebiotics in humans. A decrease in appetite and an increase in

Conclusion

The presence of saccharolytic gut bacteria in the gastro-intestinal tract is generally described to provide energy for the host, namely through the fermentation of the non-digestible carbohydrate and by promoting nutrients storage. However, targeted changes in the gut microbiota provided through the prebiotic approach can improve several metabolic disturbances occurring upon obesity. Most of the data obtained to date have been obtained in experimental animal studies, but promising effects are

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