Linking the Obese Phenotype with the Microbial Composition of the Animal Gut

Obesity in the United States has become the number one cause of morbidity and mortality with 33% of the adult population and 17% of children demonstrating an obese phenotype. Traditional approaches to combat obesity suggest that improved diet and exercise will result in weight loss. Growing evidence points to an alternative hypothesis, namely that environmental determinants interact with the microbial populations in the human gut resulting in chronic low level inflammation that produces fatty tissues. To explore this hypothesis, this study documents the correlation among the Western diet, the obese phenotype, and the composition of the microbial communities in samples removed from the guts of experimental animals. Sequencing of 16S rRNA genes was used as a measure of microbial community composition. The preliminary results of this study support the hypothesis that environmental determinants play a role in the obesity epidemic