It ’s a tale about nature that even small kid recognise : at wintertime ’s approach , a bear sets out to stuff itself with all the food it can happen . After a prolonged feast , the bear , now importantly fat , lays down for a long winter ’s snooze . But , as an adult , do you ever wonder how it is that bear can enjoy the benefit of obesity without incurring any of the drawback ? scientist do . A newspaper published today in the journalCell Reportssuggests that one secret to the bear ’ success may lie in their gut bacterium .
tether generator Fredrik Bäckhed has been studying the influence of catgut bacteria on human health for more than a decade . He ’s especially concerned in the relationship between our microbiomes — the microbial ecosystems survive in and on our bodies — and obesity . In one experiment , Bäckhed and his co-worker were able to show that our microbiome can bear upon the manner we metabolise solid food .
It was a natural next step for the scientist then to bend his care to bears , whose metamorphosis do a fantastic job managing the means their trunk use food during the yearly giving sleep .
A common mode to look at someone ’s intestine bacteria is to collect a sample of his or her poop . This is an easy , if not pleasant , task with humans . With dormant bear , however , it ’s something whole different , as torpid bears do n’t poop . Just before they dwell down for the wintertime , bear clean their bodies and paws with their tongues , ingesting a lot of hairsbreadth and foot tablet pelt in the unconscious process . But their stomachs ca n’t put up fuzz or pieces of foot pad , so these detail travel whole through their gastrointestinal pathway , along with whatever waste is forget in there at the time . This becomes deposit andforms a self-colored plugin the bear ’s butt . Nothing ’s coming out of there until springtime .
Curious researchers have two options : hold off until spring , when the bear passes the plug and get-go pooping again , or go in there and get it . Bäckhed opt for the latter : “ We took it from the rectum , ” he explain in a very summary electronic mail tomental_floss .
The researchers take both fecal and blood sample from hibernating bears in wintertime and combat-ready bear in the summer — and it ’s hard to imagine which must have been more nerve - wracking . They then add them ( the samples , not the bear ) back to the lab for a close look .
The faecal sample taken from hole up bears were less divers than those of their counterparts . The make-up of the two radical was also dissimilar . The microbiota of sleeping bears was more to a great extent populated withBacteroidetesbacteria , whereas the summertime bear hosted more bacterium from theFirmicutesandActinobacteriagroups . The bears ’ blood disclose differences as well : shift levels of metabolic substances like triglycerides , cholesterol , and bile acids .
Next , the scientists inoculated science laboratory mice with the bears ’ bacteria . They found that mice treated with summer bacterium gained both more system of weights and more fertile than the winter - bear mice . But despite their weight addition , the summertime mice abide no damage to their glucose metabolism . This suggest that , unlike obese humans , those mice ( and the bears from which they begin their bacterium ) were not specially vulnerable to metabolic conditions like diabetes .
Bäckhed hopes that further cogitation of the microbiome may lead to a better sympathy of and way to make do fleshiness in humans . " I cerebrate it ’s too other [ to say ] , as I consider this being very introductory skill , " hesaid in a press financial statement . " However , if we learn more about which bacteria and the functions that upgrade and/or protect against obesity [ in hibernating bears ] , we may describe novel potential alterative targets . "
