How the Gut Microbiome Can Make You Gain More Weight From the Same Food | EP

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Karen Corbin joins me to unpack one of the most fascinating questions in nutrition science right now: can your gut microbiome influence how many calories you actually absorb from food?

We explore what it means for weight management, metabolic health, and long-term disease risk, plus why the future of microbiome research depends on better study designs, more rigorous phenotyping, and a shift from “who’s there” to what microbes are actually doing.

What We Cover

Can two people eat the same food, yet absorb meaningfully different calories because of their microbiome?
Why a high-fibre, microbiome-supporting diet may increase faecal energy loss, and what that could mean over time
Where the “missing” calories might go, including the role of microbial biomass and fermentation
Why association-heavy microbiome research has limits, and what better human studies need to look like
Karen’s practical framework: “Have I fed my gut microbiome today?” and the four key upgrades
What the evidence says about probiotics vs food-first prebiotics for metabolic health
Why early-life factors matter, but why it is still worth changing your diet today
Where microbiome science is heading next, including metabolite signatures, objective diet measures, and gut–brain links

You can keep up with Dr Karen Corbin’s latest research on how diet-microbiome interactions influence human metabolism and energy balance by connecting with her on https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-cor... and exploring her profile at the https://www.adventhealth.com/institut....

00:00 Intro
01:09 Can the Gut Microbiome Increase or Reduce Calorie Absorption?
04:23 Karen Corbin’s Microbiome Research Journey in Nutrition Science
11:23 New Microbiome Experiments That Could Change How We Eat
21:10 Energy Balance Explained: Calories, Metabolism, and Weight Gain
33:50 How Scientists Study the Gut Microbiome
43:23 Is the Gut Microbiome Causing Obesity and Metabolic Disease?
48:09 How Medications Like Metformin Affect the Gut Microbiome
52:09 Can a High-Fiber Microbiome Diet Reduce Hunger and Cravings?
57:47 Liver Fat, Type 2 Diabetes, and Metabolic Dysfunction Explained
1:03:03 Best Diet and Nutrition Strategies for Fatty Liver Disease
1:09:28 How Diet Changes the Gut Microbiome and Metabolism
1:14:09 Probiotics vs Prebiotics: What Actually Improves Gut Health?
1:21:34 GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs and Their Effects on the Microbiome
1:25:57 Gut Microbiome Metabolites and How They Impact Health
1:31:26 Gut-Brain Connection: How the Microbiome Affects the Brain
1:39:51 Future of Gut Microbiome Research and Personalized Nutrition

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