Roles of the gut microbiome in weight management

• Published in: Nature reviews. Microbiology Vol. 21; no. 8; pp. 535 - 550
• Main Authors: Carmody, Rachel N., Bisanz, Jordan E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.08.2023; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/326/2565/2134; 631/553/318; 692/699/2743/393; 692/700/2814; 692/700/565/1436; Bioinformatics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Body weight; Complications; Diet; Digestive system; Energy balance; Energy Metabolism; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Gnotobiotic; Gut microbiota; Humans; Infectious Diseases; Intestinal microflora; Life Sciences; Malnutrition; Medical Microbiology; Meta-analysis; Metabolism; Microbiology; Microbiomes; Microbiota; Microorganisms; Obesity - therapy; Overweight; Parasitology; Public health; Review Article; Undernutrition; Virology
• ISSN: 1740-1526; 1740-1534; 1740-1534
• DOI: 10.1038/s41579-023-00888-0

Overweight, obesity, undernutrition and their respective sequelae have devastating tolls on personal and public health worldwide. Traditional approaches for treating these conditions with diet, exercise, drugs and/or surgery have shown varying degrees of success, creating an urgent need for new solutions with long-term efficacy. Owing to transformative advances in sequencing, bioinformatics and gnotobiotic experimentation, we now understand that the gut microbiome profoundly impacts energy balance through diverse mechanisms affecting both sides of the energy balance equation. Our growing knowledge of microbial contributions to energy metabolism highlights new opportunities for weight management, including the microbiome-aware improvement of existing tools and novel microbiome-targeted therapies. In this Review, we synthesize current knowledge concerning the bidirectional influences between the gut microbiome and existing weight management strategies, including behaviour-based and clinical approaches, and incorporate a subject-level meta-analysis contrasting the effects of weight management strategies on microbiota composition. We consider how emerging understanding of the gut microbiome alters our prospects for weight management and the challenges that must be overcome for microbiome-focused solutions to achieve success. In this Review, Carmody and Bisanz examine the role of the gut microbiome in energy metabolism, the two-way relationship between the gut microbiome and weight management strategies and opportunities and challenges in the development of microbiome-directed therapies targeting energy balance.