(RxWiki News) When researchers in Ireland fed an engineered bacterial strain (conjugated linoleic acid or CLA) to mice, they found it altered the composition of the mice's fat tissues considerably.
The reseachers found the the live bacteria influenced metabolism in remote parts of the body, and fat composition in particular.
Study leader Dr Catherine Stanton said that CLA had already been proven to alleviate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease often occurring with obesity, so it makes sense that increasing levels of CLA in the liver by means of a probiotic strain serves some therapeutic relevance.
Fat is active and proinflammatory, she said, not an inert layer surrounding the body, meaning fat could play host to a variety of disease risk factors, including cancer.
Researchers in this instance have shown a potential influence in diet-microbe-host interactions in the gut that might play a role in obesity reduction some day.
The bacteria may also reduce the viability of colon cancer cells by some 92 percent, researchers said.
