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Comment by DenisM | Hacker News Reader

So, only 1344 cals per day.

One can argue it was the calorie restriction and not the bacteria. However, the interesting part was that the pathogen then caused the mice to gain weight.

Probably because it made the subjects want to eat more. There's no magic bullet for gaining or losing weight, you either eat more or less that your body needs.

It's funny, how you first said there's no magic bullet, then provided everyone with a magic bullet.

Dieting isn't a magic bullet you fool, it's long, hard and worth it.

Just being hard, or even applicable in some cases, doesn't make it less of a magic bullet when someone suggests it's applicable to a broad problem.

Controlling calorie intake is hardly a magic bullet. That's like saying exercise is the magic bullet for gaining muscle or studying is a magic bullet for passing exams.

A magic bullet in this case would be something that allowed weight reduction with no restriction of calories. From experience, restricting calories long-term is very difficult.

Interesting. Being satiated after a meal is really a marker for obesity - if you eat less to get to your satiation point vs. someone else who has to eat more to get there, you're less likely to put on the pounds. I wonder if this pathogen messes with that sense of being satiated.

I found it mystifying they did much to talk about the man's weight loss diet at all, as that wasn't the science part, the mice feeding was.

But hey, perhaps they can get a study going on it to determine the causal relationship between the endotoxin, human obesity, and intestinal flora.

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