Microbial Diversity and Weight Gain

A new study in laboratory animals inoculated with human gut microbes shows how desperately important dietary prebiotic fiber is, in terms of maintaining microbial diversity. Low levels of prebiotic fiber lead to loss of diversity, which, in humans, is associated with a variety of diseases, including diabetes and autoimmune conditions. The study further demonstrates that while introduction of prebiotic fiber does restore the diversity to some degree, subsequent generations of these laboratory animals are less able to recover their diversity, with some species of gut organisms actually becoming extinct.