Five Strategies for a Healthier Gut in 2013

By Jeff Leach

In the summer of 2008, a 26-year-old man from Shanxi Province walked into a lab at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and 23 weeks later walked out 113 pounds lighter.

He had not participated in a clinical trial of some new secret weight loss pill, or signed up for a punishing Biggest Loser-style exercise program, nor had he been fussed over by behavioral scientists who made his plates and drinking cups smaller with each passing week.

The researchers, who were microbiologists, had simply put the man’s gut microbes on a diet.

One of the huge mysteries in studies of diet and exercise is the difference between people who get the same treatment but have remarkably different outcomes. Inevitably, some people in a study show little improvement despite weeks or even months of following what might seem like draconian changes in their normal diet and lifestyle. >