(Image Source: Metrolic)

BY LAUREN ZIMA
 

Feel bad about that extra weight you’ve been carrying around? Well, it might not be your fault. A new study from researchers at Yale shows obesity might be contagious. WDIV reports.

“When they put healthy mice in the same cage with mice with a fatty liver disease, the healthy mice came down with disease symptoms and also ended up fatter.”

KNSD explains …

“The reason? Microbes in the stomachs of the mice spread. That caused the healthy mice to also experience changes in their gut microbes and made them fat.”

So basically, when healthy mice were around mice who had altered gut microbes -- those healthy mice were more likely to become obese or get liver disease.

Seems potentially pretty scary -- just by being near someone who’s overweight, you could be too. But HealthyJockey.com reports the researchers used antibiotics to bring the mice’s microbial compositions back to normal, easing the liver disease. They hope this might lead to a treatment for humans, too.

The mice were fed a high-fat diet. The International Business Times quotes the lead author of the study -- who says bacteria could now be as important as diet.

“‘[Diet] is an essential part of the weight gain of the healthy as well as the immune compromised mice,’ he said. ‘However, the bacteria make both kinds of mice fatter. In others words, diet as well as the microbes contribute to the obesity.’”

Still, Blisstree is suspicious of the study and sensationalism from the media, writing …

“ … they’re not focusing on the major footnote: That it’s unlikely this could happen in humans, because we don’t eat each other’s poop. … the likely reason for such efficient transfer of gut bacteria between mice is the fact that they chow on each other’s feces. But mice … eating each others’ poop doesn’t make for such sensational headlines, so most media outlets are just hyping up the possibility that fat could be contagious.”