Being worried about gaining weight over Christmas? Most of us are likely to indulge in binge eating during the holiday season. So, many of us can gain weight after all these festivals.
But ever wonder why you gain more weight than others, even when you don’t eat more or any differently?
The answer is in your gut…quite literally!
A new study has found why you pile on the weight after Christmas while your family members getaway miraculously without putting on any weight.
A team of scientists at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Nutrition, Exercise, and sports has found that gut micro-organisms play a significant role in how your body absorbs energy from food.
Those who consume more energy from their food gain more weight than others
Researchers studied how much energy 85 overweight Danish people extracted from the food they consumed. They analyzed the gut-microbiota in the gut from participants’ stool samples to map the composition of gut microbes for each participant.
The researchers said that the gut-microbiota is like “an entire galaxy in our gut” with a staggering 100 billion of them per gram of feces.
Some people are disadvantaged by having gut bacteria that are too effective at extracting energy
The researchers found that roughly 40% of the participants had microbes that extracted more energy from food compared to the other 60%.
