Ladies- Celebrate yogurt and probiotics!

Many of us enjoy a cup of fruit yogurt with breakfast; it's packed with calcium, protein, and new studies suggest, helpful probiotics. There's a whole market of probiotics out there claiming to help in a number of ways; from the ability to sooth crying babies to nipping the common cold or flu out of your system. However, many researchers are sceptical of these probiotics due to the lack of research behind the confident marketing. Yogurt, on the other hand, has demonstrated it's probiotic power in a study investigating weight and yogurt.
The researchers observed 125 obese men and women 24 weeks. During the first 12 weeks, the participants followed a strict, weight-loss diet. In the following 12 weeks, participants no longer had a calorie restricted diet, but did follow a personalised plan. Throughout this study, half of the participants received two pills each day of a probiotic called Lactobacillus rhamnosus; that's the scientific name for a probiotic found in most yogurt. The pills contained approximately the same amount of this probiotic as found in a single serving of yogurt. The other half of the participants received placebo pills (Sanchez, et al, 2014).
After the first 12 weeks of the study, women receiving the probiotic lost an average of 9.7lbs in comparison to the placebo group of women loosing an average of 5.7lbs. Surprisingly, during the second half of the study, women receiving the placebo pills maintained their weight loss while the women receiving the probiotic continued their weight loss- with an average of an additional 11.5lbs lost. At the completion of the 24 week study, women receiving the probiotic lost nearly twice as much weight on average than the women receiving placebo!
But, wait a second; what about the men in the study? Well, it turns out the probiotic didn't make a substantial different in their weight loss. In fact, men receiving the probiotic didn't experience any major changes in their gut microbe community. The women receiving the probiotic, on the other hand, experienced substantial changes in their gut flora community. Lachnospiraceae, a family of bacteria related to obesity and inflammation, was greatly reduced in women who received the probiotic (Sanchez, et al, 2014). .
Nevertheless, there are still many unanswered questions. Researchers still aren't sure why exactly the microbe community responded differently between sexes (Sanchez, et al, 2014).  . Moreover, probiotics don't stay in the human gut for very long after being digested; so how could these probiotics change the gut bacteria community so drastically in the women participants? Only more research will unravel these mysteries- but until then- ladies, enjoy your yogurt!


Reference:

Sanchez, M., Doré, J., Rezzonico, E., Lepage, M., Emady-Azar, S., Drapeau, V., et al. (2014). Effect of Lactobacillus rhamnosus CGMCC1.3724 supplementation on weight loss and maintenance in obese men and women. British Journal of Nutrition, 111(08), 1507-1519.