North Shore Times (New Zealand)
The ‘forgotten organ’ study
It has been described as the ‘‘forgotten organ’’ by researchers and may just have a key role in the subtle causes of obesity.
The billions of microbes that live in the human gut are being studied by food scientists at Massey University’s Human Nutrition Research Unit in Albany.
To do so, they’ll be intimately monitoring New Zealand women’s diet and lifestyle, challenging the logic that obesity is solely explained by consuming more energy than you expend.
‘‘Definitely if you put energy in it’s got to go somewhere and, in most mammalian species, it’s deposited as adipose tissue,’’ lead researcher in the study Professor Bernhard Breier says.
‘‘But it’s also a matter of how the gut bacteria influence that process and we do know they produce a lot of metabolites.
‘‘These not only help digest food, but also feed back to the brain to the appetiteregulating centres.’’
While the Massey study will not directly investigate the biology behind appetite regulation at a molecular level, Breier says the nature of the bacteria colonies in the gut have a complex interplay.
‘‘It’s a symbiotic relationship between the different bacteria,’’ Breier says.
‘‘It’s almost like human communities, you’ve got the butcher, you’ve got the baker, you’ve got the carpenter, it’s an interplay.’’
What is clear is that New Zealand society is living in an ‘‘obesogenic environment’’ along with most other Western countries.
‘‘We’ve got a Western diet which is very high in sugar, it’s very palatable, inexpensive, energy dense, readily available, nutrient poor in many situations, and unless we change that there will be very little progress,’’ Breier says.
Research coordinator for the study Niamh Brennan says there is no easy answer to the onslaught of unhealthy food.
‘‘There is no magic bullet, and to a certain extent it is about human behaviour but the fact that there’s so little known at this stage makes it a really worthwhile research area,’’ Brennan says.
The Massey University nutritionists are looking for women between 20 and 40 years old, of New Zealand European and Pasifika ethnicity, to participate in their study.
Contact the research team on 09 212 7013 or email promise@massey.ac.nz