In Anorexic Patients
In 2009, the largest human study concerning obesity and gut microbiota to date was conducted. Obesity disorders are the result of an imbalance and have serious consequences such as cardiovascular disease, type-two diabetes, and colon cancer. The gut microbiota and environment contributes to the energy imbalance because of its involvement in energy intake, conversion and storage. Culture-independent methods have shown that high proportions of methanogens can comprise up to 10% of all anaerobes in the colons of healthy adults. The quantification average of M. smithii for the anorexic group was much greater than the lean and obese group. Thus, higher amounts of M. smithii were found in anorexic patients than lean patients.
The development of Methanobrevibacter in anorexic nervosa patients may be associated with an adaptive attempt towards optimal exploitation of the low caloric diet of anorexic patients. Hence, an increase in M. smithii leads to the optimization of food transformation in low caloric diets. M. smithii could also be related to constipation, a common condition for anorexic patients.
Read more about this topic: Methanobrevibacter Smithii
Famous quotes containing the words anorexic and/or patients:
“The anorexic prefigures this culture in rather a poetic fashion by trying to keep it at bay. He refuses lack. He says: I lack nothing, therefore I shall not eat. With the overweight person, it is the opposite: he refuses fullness, repletion. He says, I lack everything, so I will eat anything at all. The anorexic staves off lack by emptiness, the overweight person staves off fullness by excess. Both are homeopathic final solutions, solutions by extermination.”
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