This is a

scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Steve Mursky.

We focus on what is called recurrent obesity or yo-oebicity which is a feature which affects

close to 80% of all overweight

individuals worldwide. Iran Elinov of the Whitesman Institute of Science in

Israel. This is the phenomenon in which we gain weight and then we go on a successful diet, but within 12

months we go back to our original weight and we even gain more weight from cycle to cycle.

So this is called recurrent obesity.

But Elinoff may have taken a step toward getting a handle on that frustrating post-diet pound

packing that leaves people heavier than when they started.

He spoke February 17th at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

We developed a few models in mice which feature this exact pattern of a recurrent exaggerated obesity following cycles of obesity and successful dieting.

And what we found was that the one important determinant which drives this exaggerated weight regain tendency

is a persistent alteration of the composition and function of our gut microbiome following a successful dieting.

In other words, we diet and we normalize all of our metabolic

parameters after we successfully diet. But we still can maintain the microbial profile and function

that we had before losing the weight.

So, Eleanor's team did a detailed analysis of the biochemistry going on within the mice.

And we came across two molecules in mice, which are from the Flavinoid family and basically these molecules

signal to the host adipose tissue telling it to extract more heat and to gain less fat.

The molecules called apogenin and narengenin

get degraded in the presence of the obesity-related microbiome.

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