This is an interesting study about gut bacteria, intestinal gas and obesity – but I don’t exactly agree with conclusions.
The authors conclude that people become obese because they have higher amounts of hydrogen and methane (if we could only stop the hydrogen and methane!). But to me the opposite seems more likely. People struggling with obesity eat more (especially the carb types we talk about on this site), suffer more malabsorption and produce more of these gasses because they have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). That’s why obesity is linked to GERD which is linked to SIBO.
Dr. Norm Robillard earned his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he studied Bacillus anthracis and other Bacillus species. His post-doctoral research at Tufts University focused on antibiotic resistance and gene transfer between gut microbes, including Bacteroides fragilis and E. coli.
Over the course of his career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, Dr. Robillard studied the genetics of antibiotic resistance, septic shock, viral illnesses, and both antimicrobial and antibody-based therapies. He later founded the Digestive Health Institute, where he developed the Fast Tract Diet—a science-based, root-cause approach to resolving functional gastrointestinal disorders, gut dysbiosis, other digestive and related health conditions.
As the author of the Fast Tract Digestion book series and creator of the Fast Tract Diet mobile app, Dr. Robillard was the first to identify excess intestinal fermentation as a key driver of reflux. He also introduced the link between gas-producing gut bacteria, intragastric pressure, and nutritional malabsorption as a mechanism behind reflux symptoms.
His latest work, the Fast Tract Digestion series, offers a safe, effective alternative to proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), H2 blockers, IBS medications, and antibiotics for conditions such as GERD, LPR, IBS, SIBO/IMO and related disorders.
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Amazing how often this happens in science. There is no thought given by the authors of the study to which direction flows cause and affect or even other confounders as you pointed out, such as presence of the specific starches as percentage of the diet, that produce those gases.
Amazing how often this happens in science. There is no thought given by the authors of the study to which direction flows cause and affect or even other confounders as you pointed out, such as presence of the specific starches as percentage of the diet, that produce those gases.