Probiotics and nutraceuticals as a new frontier in obesity prevention and management

The beneficial interaction between the microbiota and humans is how bacteria contained within the gut 'talk' to the immune system and in this landscape, probiotics and nutraceuticals play a major role. The study aims to determine whether probiotics plus nutraceuticals such as smectite or omega-3 are superior to probiotic alone on the monosodium glutamate (MSG) induced obesity model in rats.

Totally, 75 rats divided into five groups were included (n = 15, in each). Rats in group I were intact. Newborn rats in groups II-V were injected with MSG. Group III (Symbiter) received 2.5 ml/kg of multiprobiotic "Symbiter" containing concentrated biomass of 14 probiotic bacteria genera. Groups IV (Symbiter-Omega) and V (Symbiter-Smectite) received a combination of probiotic biomass supplemented with flax and wheat germ oil (250 mg of each, concentration of omega-3 fatty acids 1-5%) or smectite gel (250 mg), respectively.

In all interventional groups, significant reductions of total body and visceral adipose tissue weight as compared to MSG-obesity were observed. However, the lowest prevalence of obesity was noted for Symbiter-Omega (20% vs 33.3% as compared to other interventional groups). Moreover, supplementation of probiotics with omega-3 lead to a more pronounced decrease in HOMA-IR (2.31 ± 0.13 vs 4.02 ± 0.33, p < 0.001) and elevation of adiponectin levels (5.67 ± 0.39 vs 2.61 ± 0.27, P < 0.001), compared to the obesity group.

Probiotics and nutraceuticals led to a significantly lower prevalence of obesity, reduction of insulin resistance, total and VAT weight. Our study demonstrated that supplementation of probiotics with omega-3 may have the most beneficial antiobesity properties.