Add friendly bugs to your diet, lose weight

LONDON: Here's some good news for those struggling to shed the flab — scientists have created friendly bacteria which they claim could help dieters lose excess body fat when added to yogurt.
A team from the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority and Cork University has found that it can alter the bacteria which is found naturally in human gut and probiotic yogurts , to make it produce a type of molecule that has been shown to reduce levels of fat tissue in the body .
The scientists hope they will be able to produce new types of probiotic yogurts and drinks which can help to cut obesity, TheDaily Telegraph reported.
In fact , in their research , the scientists created a strain of Lactobacillus bacteria ,which is common in the human gut and aids digestion of food, by inserting a gene from another type of bacteria which naturally produces a polyunsaturated fatty acid called t10,c12Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA).
The researchers found the levels of t10, c12 CLA in the body fatof micefedtheengineeredstrain were four times greater than mice fed a control strain . They also found that concentrations of the molecule in the rats ' livers were 2.5 times higher when they werefedthe newbacterium .