 Probiotics may help ward off postpartum obesity
Source:(Reuters Health) By Anthony J. Brown, MD Date: 5/11/09
NEW YORK: Pregnant women who take probiotic supplements starting in the first trimester are less likely to develop central obesity after they've given birth, according to a new study.
Central obesity was defined as a body mass index of 30 or higher or a waist
circumference greater than 80 centimeters, about 31-1/2 inches.
At
1 year after giving birth, 25 percent of women given probiotics along
with dietary counseling had central obesity based on that definition,
compared with 43 percent of women given diet advice alone.
The findings were reported Thursday at the European Congress on Obesity being held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
"This
is the first study showing that probiotics-supplemented diet during
pregnancy and breastfeeding influences the adiposity of women over the
12-month postpartum period," Kirsi Laitinen, from the University of
Turku, Finland, told Reuters Health.
The
results stem from a study of 256 pregnant women who were given either
probiotic capsules plus dietary advice, or placebo capsules plus
dietary advice, or placebo capsules and no dietary advice. The
probiotic capsules, which contained Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium,
were continued for up to 6 months after delivery until the women had
stopped exclusive breastfeeding.
The
percentages of women with central obesity at 1 year were 25 percent, 43
percent, and 40 percent in the probiotic, dietary advice-only, and
no-probiotic/advice groups, respectively. The corresponding average
body fat percentages were 28 percent, 29 percent, and 30 percent.
Laitinen
noted that one limitation of the study was "the lack of baseline
measurement of waist circumference, which was not possible to conduct
in pregnant women."
Modification
of normal bacterial in the intestines probiotics "together with a
balanced diet may offer a reasonably economic, practical, safe and
potentially successful method to be used with other lifestyle-related
factors in controlling obesity," the researcher said -- while
acknowledging that further studies are needed to verify these findings.
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