A Slimy bacterium that may fight obesity...

In a Medscape commentary (July 5, 2019), F. Perry Wilson, MD, MSCE discusses "This Slimy Bacterium May Fight Obesity”…

 

"Akkermansia muciniphila, a mucin-eating, gram-negative, obligate anaerobe that lives happily in the intestinal tract—that is, if you're lucky, as more and more data point to A muciniphila as an obesity-fighting bacterium.”

 

The presence of A muciniphila goes down as BMI goes up in humans, and mouse studies have shown that treatment with live A muciniphila reduced weight gain by 50% when mice were put on a high-fat diet.

But mice aren't people. And until now, all of the suggestive findings about this bacterium were based on association, not causation.

That changes a bit this week with the publication of this study[1] in Nature Medicine, a pilot randomized trial of A muciniphila administration among individuals with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance.

Thirty-two such individuals were randomized to placebo, live A muciniphila, or dead pasteurized A muciniphila. The active treatment groups took around 10 billion bacteria (suspended in glycerin) daily for 3 months. The primary outcome was safety, and the good news is that there were no serious adverse events.

 

We could stop there, but the data got more interesting than that. Multiple markers of metabolic health improved in the groups receiving the bacteria compared with the groups receiving placebo.

 

Compared with placebo, insulin sensitivity increased while total cholesterol and some liver function tests decreased. Interestingly, there was a significant decrease in the white blood cell count in those who got the bacteria, associated with a decrease in lipopolysaccharide in the blood, suggesting a strengthening of the gut barrier.

 

Reference:

1. Depommier C, Everard A, Druart C, et al. Supplementation with Akkermansia muciniphila in overweight and obese human volunteers: a proof-of-concept exploratory study. Nat Med.2019 July 1. [Epub ahead of print]

The “Bad News”:

 

"And for now, if you want to get your hands on A muciniphila, you're out of luck. There's only one lab producing it at quantity, and it won't be on the market until at least 2021.”

 

 

The “Good News”:

 

• *The probiotic strain animalis ssp. lactis 420 / Bifidobacterium lactis B-450™ (UltraBiotic Integrity) increased the abundance of A. muciniphila, which is associated with healthy, lean body composition and improved metabolism.