A Fecal Transplant May Have Just Offered Dramatic Proof That Obesity Is Caused By Gut Flora

It’s an ongoing argument in the medical community as to why, exactly, Americans are turning into sentient blobs of lard. Obesity rates have dramatically risen to the point where it’s considered an epidemic, and nobody quite knows why. But a fecal transplant’s results might indicate that our gut flora is part of the problem.

We’ve known for a while that gut flora does far more than just help us break down food and cut the cheese. But the link between gut flora and obesity remains something of an open question. It’s not like we can just transplant the poop of fat people into thin people and see what happens in a clinical setting.

Oh wait! We already do that, as the BBC pointed out. A woman with a C. diff infection who received a fecal transplant from her overweight daughter quickly put on 36 pounds, with no end in sight. She complained that it was as if “a switch was flipped.”

It’s worth noting that obesity was easily the better of the two options here. A Clostridium infection is far more dangerous, short term. Similarly, Americans could, overall, stand to get off the couch and eat more celery. Considering the long-term health effects of obesity, the more we learn about the link between obesity and gut flora, the more we may wonder whether it’s the creatures in our guts giving us a spare tire… and just as importantly, why they seem to have spread so far.

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