Current conception of the link of obesity and intestinal microbiota

More than 500 million people in the world are overweight, this “epidemic” covers all countries, including Russia, and there is both in adults and in children. This is usually attributed to a change in lifestyle and diet of modern people, that also may influence at intestinal microbiota. Microbiota takes part in the energy and fat metabolism, which has been proven in germ-free animals. Transplantation of microflora from overweight animals to germ-free ones contributed to the development of obesity, regardless of diet. Obesity is accompanied by mild chronic inflammation, it can be a result of changing of intestinal microbiota. Lipopolysaccharides (LPS) of Gram (–) intestinal bacteria via activation of TLR-4 are the main cause of this inflammation. Intestinal microbiota of obese and slim is different. Obesity increases the number of Clostridia and Gram (–) Proteobacteria, reduced number of Bacteroides and Bifidobacteria. Recent works showed the positive influence of probiotics, particularly infant Bifidobacteria strains, on metabolic syndrome, in particular, the level of glucose, insulin, cholestero