Some guts are better than others at harvesting energy

New research from the University of Copenhagen suggests that a portion of the Danish population has a composition of gut microbes that, on average, extracts more energy from food than do the microbes in the guts of their fellow Danes. The research is a step towards understanding why some people gain more weight than others, even when they eat the same.

Unfair as it, some of us seem to put on weight just by looking at a plate of Christmas cookies, while others can munch away with abandon and not gain a gram. Part of the explanation could be related to the composition of our gut microbes. This, according to new research conducted at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports.

Reference:

Boekhorst, J. el at, Stool energy density is positively correlated to intestinal transit time and related to microbial enterotypes, Microbiome, DOI

10.1186/s40168-022-01418-5.