Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Microbial ecology

Human gut microbes associated with obesity

Naturevolume444,pages1022 - 1023 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Two groups of beneficial bacteria are dominant in the human gut, the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes. Here we show that the relative proportion of Bacteroidetes is decreased in obese people by comparison with lean people, and that this proportion increases with weight loss on two types of low-calorie diet. Our findings indicate that obesity has a microbial component, which might have potential therapeutic implications.

This is a preview of subscription content,access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Correlation between body-weight loss and gut microbial ecology.

References

  1. Gill, S. R. et al.Science312, 1355–1359 (2006).

    ADSCAS文章Google Scholar

  2. Backhed, F. et al.公关oc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA101, 15718–15723 (2004).

    ADS文章Google Scholar

  3. Ley, R. E. et al.公关oc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA102, 11070–11075 (2005).

    ADSCAS文章Google Scholar

  4. Turnbaugh, P. J. et al.Nature444, 1027–1031 (2006). |文章|

    ADS文章Google Scholar

  5. Rawls, J. F., Mahowald, M. A., Ley, R. E. & Gordon, J. I.Cell127, 423–433 (2006).

    CAS文章Google Scholar

  6. Eckburg, P. B. et al.Science308, 1635–1638 (2005).

    ADS文章Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, 63108, Missouri, USA

    Ruth E. Ley, Peter J. Turnbaugh, Samuel Klein & Jeffrey I. Gordon

Authors
  1. Ruth E. Ley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMedGoogle Scholar

  2. Peter J. Turnbaugh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMedGoogle Scholar

  3. Samuel Klein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMedGoogle Scholar

  4. Jeffrey I. Gordon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMedGoogle Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence toJeffrey I. Gordon.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

The Supplementary Information contains: 1) Supplementary Methods 2) Supplementary References 3) Supplementary Table

Supplementary Video Streaming

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ley, R., Turnbaugh, P., Klein, S.et al.Human gut microbes associated with obesity.Nature444, 1022–1023 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/4441022a

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/4441022a

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by ourTermsandCommunity Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for theNature Briefingnewsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing