Lean and obese

Bacterial communities in the gut appear to be different between lean and obese people. 
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We can't be certain whether that perturbation is the cause, contribution or consequence of being overweight. 
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But these bacteria are candidates for being a cause and this is being investigated.
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Previous studies on laboratory mice and farm animals have established a link between gut flora, the use of antibiotics and an increase in body fat
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Scientists for political and other reasons have been wary of extrapolating these findings to humans.
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A recent study investigated the bacterial genes found in the gut flora of 177 Danish people, 55 of whom were lean, with the rest either overweight or obese. 
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Scientists in the Meta-HIT consortium found that most people in the study carried in their intestines around 600,000 distinct bacterial genes. 
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But about a third of the obese participants had only about 360,000 bacterial genes
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About 30 or 40 per cent fewer
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This suggests they possessed a distinctly poorer community of gut flora
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Our gut flora is typically composed of about 160 different species of microbial lifeforms.
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Just for your information here are the microbes that live inside us
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The healthy human gut contains 100 trillion microbial cells
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10 times as many as the human cells that comprise the body.
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About 1,000 species of microbe can live in the human gut
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But at any one time a person typically has about 160.
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Members of the same family tend to have similar communities of gut bacteria.
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The two dominant groups of gut bacteria, the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes, help us to break down food.
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Without such communities humans would start to feel ill and be more susceptible to illness
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Can you guess why big pharma is suddenly talking about dangerous bacteria?
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Why a new mega market looms large!
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Not to mention the new dependencies this would create
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Surely not