 Hi, this is Dr. Ruscio and let's discuss if prebiotics can help with weight loss. Now what are prebiotics firstly? Prebiotics are compounds that feed our intestinal bacteria. So they're food for probiotics, you could almost say. So they feed the bacteria in our gut. And one of the reasons why prebiotics are attractive is because prebiotics help to feed the gut bacteria which then produce these compounds known as short chain fatty acids. And short chain fatty acids can be anti-inflammatory and help to repair your gut, your gut lining. So theoretically there's a lot of appeal in trying to increase the production of short chain fatty acids. But it's important especially as a healthcare consumer to realize that just because something can be good when we look at it under a microscope doesn't necessarily mean that the intervention that facilitates that compound is going to be helpful in a human. And short chain fatty acids and prebiotics actually illustrate what I think is an important example of that. Now interestingly in obese subjects and people who are significantly overweight, often times high levels of short chain fatty acids are reported. So that would be a little bit counterintuitive where you would think that high levels of this compound would be good. Even illustrating a concept that just because something is shown to be beneficial in this sense doesn't mean that more and more and more of that compound is better. So more is clearly not better being in a, you know, your physiological sweet spot zone is often times the best spot to be in. So this connects us to a current study that, and I'll put the abstract up here on the screen, essentially took a group of obese subjects and gave them prebiotics. And they actually saw the levels of short chain fatty acids decrease. This is very counterintuitive. You would think short chain fatty acids are fed by prebiotics. So how is it that when we give obese subjects prebiotics, the short chain fatty acids don't go up. They actually go down. Well perhaps what's happening here is the prebiotics are feeding good bacteria and as the good bacteria grow more, they're kind of policing out and crowding out some bad bacteria or some imbalanced bacteria. And when all these changes occur, the colony in the gut becomes more balanced and therefore we see more appropriate levels of short chain fatty acids. So it's not just about always trying to increase the levels. We have to decrease the levels and to think about this more globally, just because something is good in a small amount doesn't mean more is better, more is better, more is better. So in this case, prebiotics were given to obese subjects and their short chain fatty acids which are anti-inflammatory but also high in obese subjects came down even though prebiotics feed short chain fatty acids. So when we zoom way out, what does this really translate to in terms of effect? Well the fasting or the insulin levels in these obese subjects who received the prebiotic supplementation improved. Now if we look at this, it would be very simple to conclude that perhaps prebiotics would be healthy for weight loss. Even more so if you get roped into thinking mechanistically that prebiotics help increase in some cases short chain fatty acids and short chain fatty acids are healthy for the gut and I've heard that leaky gut can cause weight gain then prebiotics can probably help with my weight gain through repairing the gut. That theory is attractive but when we look at the clinical trials with prebiotics supplementation for weight loss, the best results that we see are about 2.3 pounds of weight loss and this is an overweight subjects. So that's something, right, but the effect size is fairly small. So the reason why I make this cautious commentary is because with the interest in the gut, which is great because I definitely believe the importance of the gut deserves attention but you have to be careful because you'll be bombarded with all these different media claims about the next weight loss cure or the next leaky gut miracle or what have you and it's just important that we contextualize that while prebiotics can do some interesting things, it doesn't appear that they cause a major or significant impact on your weight. Again, remembering that the best trial, at least to date, using prebiotics has shown about 2.3 pounds of weight loss. It's also important to keep in mind that sometimes you may hear estimates of prebiotics being able to produce a significantly higher amount of weight loss than 2.3 pounds. However, and here's where the devil is in the details, these are often times in studies where people go on a prebiotic supplement, change their diet, and start an exercise program. So if you say people lost 10 pounds when they went on a prebiotic, but you don't mention that they also changed their diet and started exercising, then you can't truthfully say that the prebiotic caused 10 pounds of weight loss. So just a few important notes for you as a healthcare consumer to be aware of that, well, yes, prebiotics may have a favorable impact on short chain of fatty acids and how those can be helpful for the gut. It doesn't necessarily mean that prebiotics are going to be hugely impactful for weight loss. Certainly something that has a time and a place prebiotics that is. But be cautious if you're getting room to think that prebiotics are going to have an appreciable effect on your weight loss. Okay, this is Dr. Ruscio and I hope this information helps you get healthy and get back to your life. Thanks.