Obesity and inflammation: probiotics or pharmaceuticals intervention?

Epidemiological studies of anti-obesity medicines depict short-term success, but long-term contraindications. The pharmaceutical industry demonstrates an exponential increase in withdrawn medicines.

History has demonstrated retrospectively that prescription medicines have cost countless lives and billions of dollars in compensation.

Currently the pharmaceutical industry only appears to be able to palliate the problem in its provision of medicines to balance the energy metabolism equations which control weight. New medicines and lower doses of older failed medications to combat the obesity pandemic are being researched, but should we not look to our own gastrointestinal microbiota and probiotic bacteria (“probiotics”) to provide an answer? Probiotics are live microorganisms which when ingested in adequate quantities, confer health benefits on the host. The identification that the dietary ingestion of specific bacteria that can decrease the inflammatory responses of ageing, may have a dramatic influence on the management of obesity, without the side effects of traditional pharmacotherapies.