This Surprising Supplement Can Help Manage Weight, New Study Shows*

Carrying excess weight, especially body fat, is a contributor to poor metabolic health (like high blood sugar or cholesterol levels). And if that's the case, healthy weight loss can be an important component to improving your metabolic health, which also impacts your heart, brain, and overall longevity. The gut microbiome is an underrated factor in weight loss success that's highly influenced by both fiber and probiotics. 

Fiber can help nourish that microbiome and support weight loss efforts.* One of the most recommended ways to bump up your fiber intake is to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables you eat. That’s because these foods are high in nutrients (hello fiber, vitamins, and minerals) and low in calories. And probiotics—especially in the form of supplements—deliver beneficial strains of bacteria directly to the gut, contributing to a healthy, weight loss-promoting environment.* 

Researchers of a recently published study in Nutrients set out to see whether combining these dietary components had a synergistic effect on weight loss—and a person’s greater metabolic health. Here’s what they found. 

The two main dietary components of this study were increasing fruit and vegetable intake and taking a synbiotic supplement. Synbiotic is a fancy term for a supplement that combines probiotics and prebiotic fiber. 

Prebiotic fiber is a certain type of fiber that nourishes the beneficial microbes in the gut (not the bad ones). 

Now researchers were particularly interested in seeing if adding the synbiotic to increased fruit and vegetable intake helped people adjust to a high-fiber diet (most notably accompanied by bloating and stomach discomfort), and whether the supplement helped improve measures of metabolic health like blood sugar levels, blood fat levels (aka triglycerides), and good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol). 

So they randomly assigned 55 Hong Kong Chinese adults (between the ages of 20 and 65) with overweight or obesity to one of three groups for a total of eight weeks: 

Sure enough, a synergistic effect was seen. Those who ate more fruits and veggies and took the synbiotic supplement had significant improvements and experienced the greatest weight loss effects at the end of two months. 

In addition, they also had improved blood sugar control, improved cholesterol levels, and decreases in a certain type of—bacteria (Megamonas)—which is actually linked to better measures of body composition. 

This study offers further evidence that supplementing with prebiotics and probiotics can be a potent addition—but not the sole route—to support other efforts of weight loss.* 

However, research shows the most pronounced benefits behind the two strains used in this study are easing bloating and helping with the frequency of bowel movements.* 

The probiotic strain that has the most convincing evidence for weight loss or weight management support is actually Bifidobacterium lactis B420.  

A six-month-long study of 225 people showed that those who supplemented with Bifidobacterium lactis B420 helped reduce calorie intake, midsection fat mass, and waist circumference. 

So if your goal really is weight loss, choosing a product that includes Bifidobacterium lactis B420 is a smart choice. (Luckily our favorite weight loss probiotic does and also packs the two strains for bloating used in this study).*