Obese children

Butyrate Causes Significant Weight Loss in Obese Children

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A group of 54 very obese children, 5 to 17 year of age, were placed on a standard weight loss diet plus either a butyrate supplement or a placebo for six months (JAMA Netw Open, Dec 5, 2022;5(12):e2244912). The butyrate group took sodium butyrate capsules, 20 mg/kg body weight per day, up to a maximum of 800 mg per day for six months. Those given butyrate lost significantly more weight than those in the placebo group. They also had:
• greater reduction in their waist circumference (risk factor for diabetes and heart disease)
• lower blood sugar levels (risk factor for diabetes)
• lower blood insulin levels (risk factor for certain cancers)
• lower insulin resistance (as measured by HOMA-IR test, risk factor for diabetes)
• lower blood total cholesterol and bad LDL cholesterol levels
• lower ghrelin (a hormone that makes you feel hungry)
• lower microRNA221 relative expression (gene regulatory RNA that increases cancer risk)
• lower IL-6 level (measure of inflammation that can cause cancer, heart attacks and premature death)

Adverse side effects included transient mild nausea and headache in two patients during the first month of taking butyrate. Symptoms disappeared during the following four weeks, and both patients were able to continue their assigned treatment.

Several studies show that butyrate pills help animals to lose weight and control blood sugar levels, but the few studies showing weight loss in obese humans have been done on very small sample sizes (Obesity Reviews, Oct 2022;23(10):e13498). So far the studies in humans have been short and not controlled with placebos. A few earlier studies on humans have found increased insulin sensitivity only in lean, healthy people but not in those who have diabetes (Clin Transl Gastroenterol, 2018; 9(5):e155).

What is Butyrate?
Butyrate is a by-product of the breakdown of soluble fiber by bacteria in your colon (Molecules, 2021;26(3):682). All plants contain soluble fiber that cannot be absorbed until it reaches your colon, where the good bacteria metabolize it to produce short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that are absorbed into your bloodstream. SCFAs help to lower high blood pressure and high blood levels of cholesterol, sugar, and insulin. This study showed a dramatic lowering of insulin resistance, body fat, waist circumference, a hormone that makes you hungry, and DNA susceptibility to forming cancer cells. There are several different SCFAs and each is defined by its number of carbon atoms. Butyrate is a SCFA with four carbon atoms.

Obesity is Common and Hard to Treat
Fifty-seven percent of obese children will still be obese at age 35 and therefore will be at very high risk for the diseases and premature death it causes (N Engl J Med, Nov 2017; 377:2145-2153). Bacteria in your colon have been shown to affect the absorption and storage of food that you eat (Science, 2018;362:776–780), and obesity is strongly associated with a low intake of plant foods that are rich sources of soluble fiber (Prz Gastroenterol, 2020;15(2):119-125). Some foods, such as those with added sugars, promote the growth of harmful bacteria that try to invade your colon cells, which can cause inflammation that increases risk for metabolic disease and fat deposition (Science, 2018;362:776–780). In the future, we may be able to prevent obesity by altering the balance of healthful and harmful bacteria in the colon, and increasing butyrate from the breakdown of soluble fiber by the healthful bacteria (Molecules, 2021;26(3):682).

My Recommendations
I will watch for further studies on butyrate supplements for weight loss and control of diabetes. Meanwhile, you can get the possible benefits of butyrate supplements by eating more plants, since soluble fiber from any source will be metabolized to SCFAs including butyrate.

If you can pinch more than two inches of fat underneath the skin next to your belly button, you are at significant risk for diabetes and a heart attack because that usually means that your liver is full of fat. A fatty liver is the major cause of insulin resistance and diabetes that cause heart attacks and premature death. Part of your program to get rid of the excess fat is to eat a diet rich in soluble fiber in plants and avoid high rises in blood sugar caused by foods with added sugar, drinks with any sugar and all refined carbohydrates. Not eating enough vegetables is a significant risk factor for obesity, diabetes and heart attacks.

Obese children can now get fit by watching cartoons – genius!

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Child obesity is no laughing matter. Which is why it seems odd for the Change4Life campaign to make it one .

I’ll never forget the afternoon I burst into my 13-year-old brother’s room without knocking. He and his friends were in a messy semi-circle around the TV, watching a woman heavy-breathe her way through what appeared to be the final stages of some kind of orgasmic delirium. Her spine was arched and her head thrown back as the hand-held camera panned in on a bead of sweat glistening in the hollows of her clavicle.

Monsters Inc

Characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse and the clan from Monsters, Inc. (above) will lead their own exercise videos, designed to get children moving for an hour a day

Exercise videos were popular with my big brothers – but somehow Cindy Crawford’s Shape Your Body maintained its allure long after Elle Macpherson’s Your Personal Best and Supermodel Butt and Thighs were dispatched to the Sue Ryder shop. They’re probably still there, beneath a pile of commemorative royal mugs, should any of today’s obese teens fancy using them for anything other than titillation.

But it’s the under-12s we’re most worried about these days: the exercise-averse kids like the 15-stone, 11-year-old boy (touchingly nicknamed “wee chubby” by his family), whose parents were arrested for “neglect” earlier this month.

Luckily, the Government has come up with a new plan to tackle child obesity. Under a deal with Disney, characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse – along with the clan from Monsters, Inc. – will lead their own exercise videos, designed to get children moving for an hour a day. They don’t call those public health officials mad geniuses for no reason, do they?

Actually, I’m pretty sure they don’t call them geniuses at all. Which is unfair, because this new incentive is nothing short of it. Forget the nation’s obese children: I’ll be the first to hunker down with Monsters, Inc.’s Sulley as he deadlifts his way – in thonged Spandex – to the blue furry body of his dreams. I’ll be there on the mat with Goofy – who with his long, lean physique has always struck me as the ultimate yoga buff – attempting a perfect downward dog, and lunging along with the snowman from Frozen as he sweats it out to Let It Go.

Of course, the slight anatomical discrepancies between your average primary-schooler and, say, Mickey Mouse, could be an issue, but they’re probably no less disparate in body shape than Cindy and her aspirational female devotees. And with our biology results slipping down the world’s league tables, who’s going to tell the difference between their own physique and that of a lederhosen-wearing cartoon mouse anyway?

With one in three of Britain’s children overweight by the end of primary school, child obesity is – I realise – no laughing matter. Which is why it seems rather odd to make it one.

“Imaginative solutions” is what the government’s Change4Life campaign likes to call it. But it’s when people start getting imaginative – food manufacturers with their ingredients, parents with their children’s physical activities – that the problems start. There’s nothing imaginative about broccoli or kicking a ball around a park. But lace your child’s broccoli with Coca-Cola and settle him in front of a TV set on which a Disney character can be seen kicking a ball around a park, and it’s full marks for creative thinking – no matter what the outcome.

Thanks to the creative thinking from Change4Life, we may well suddenly be seeing fleets of overweight British children bending it like Baloo all over the country – but there are other concerns. For one thing, the endorsement conflicts. Will Mickey have to resign as the face of Pez Candy, and will Disney Junior’s Doc McStuffins relinquish her lucrative ice-cream cake sideline? More importantly: will the disclaimers at the start of these exercise videos be clear enough? Because Cindy’s side crunches didn’t half mess up my left hip.