Nature
This have been observed by researchers working on the European METACARDIS project. The researchers have published the first results of their investigation into the composition of the intestinal flora of obese patients in the magazine Nature.

Simple test
At the same time, the researchers managed to improve the composition of the intestinal flora through a specific diet. In the future, it will soon be possible to develop a simple test to identify people at risk and offer them a suitable preventive solution.

Obesity epidemic
The obesity epidemic affected about 400 million adults in 2005. It will affect 700 million people in 2015 and the numbers will continue to increase. The causes are partially environmental - a more sedentary lifestyle, changes in eating habits, etc. - and partially genetic.

Microbiome
Obesity linked to mutations represents a minority of cases. More and more data indicate that the variations in our ‘other genome’, the microbiome, i.e. the total genome of all the micro-organisms in our body, do more in the development of obesity than variations or polymorphism in the human genome.

Read more on the research results in the press release on the website of INSERM.