Will Engineered Super-Bacteria Help Even Gluttons to Stay Lean? Vanderbilt Scientists "Produce" Anti-Obesity Bacteria to be Administered in the Drinking Water

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From the microbe engineer's petri dishes into your guts. It's not unlikely that we are about to see "anti-obesity" bacteria being sold in a year or two.

I am not even sure if it would be a good thing, but the latest study Zhongyi Chen and colleagues from various US labs published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation clearly suggests: With the right gut tenants (microbiome), "super-sizing" your meals may no longer super-size your fat stores.

The principle appears to be hilariously simple. The scientists "manufactured" a type of E. coli Nissle bacteria (1917), that produces so-called N-acylphosphatidylethanolamines (NAPEs). These "NAPEs" are precursors to the N-acylethanolamide (NAE) family of lipids, which are synthesized in the small intestine in response to feeding and reduce food intake and obesity.
The Consequence: Well, you just have to take a closer look at the data in Figure 1 to see that the provision of these bacteria in the drinking did more than just prevent the rodent-typical fat gain on a high fat diet.

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Figure 1: Weight gain (g) and fat mass (g) in rodents on high fat diet, with water, placebo (vehicle), regular E. coli (pEcN) and NAPE-produce E.coli in the drinking water (Chen. 2014)

What's interesting is the fact that the treatment was not permanent. These bacteria do thus not work like an "anti-obesity" vaccine. The treament-induced changes in the ratio of different bacteria in the rodent guts (increased number of Bacteriodetes, reduced number of Firmicutes increased) was reversed, when the treatment was ceased after 8 weeks.
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