UNDER THE WEATHER

The health concerns worsened by cold weather

This week: You’re prone to getting fat. GETTING fatter in the winter isn’t just about eating comfort food.

We have thousands of different bacteria in the gut, known collectively as the microbiome.

Each bacteria has a different job and a 2014 study found that, during winter, the balance shifts so we have higher levels of Firmicutes — bacteria that absorb calories.

Why this happens isn’t known, but ‘during winter your body wants to extract and store as much energy from food as possible’, said University of Chicago researcher Dr Emily Davenport. However, we might also contribute to the change by swapping to a stodgier diet. High levels of plant foods in the diet create a more diverse microbiome, ‘but if you’ve been eating three or four servings of fresh produce a day and that shrinks to one in winter, you may change the composition of your gut bacteria accordingly’, says Dr Davenport.