Want to Ditch Your Stomach Fat? Try Probiotics!

Reader Contribution by Susan Melgren and Web Editor
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If you’re not already drinking milk to help you lose weight, now might be a good time to start. Instead of grabbing a regular glass of two percent milk, however, pour yourself a glass of probiotic milk. A recent study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that consuming dairy products containing the probiotic Lactobacillus gasseri can help reduce abdominal fat in overweight people.

Drinking a glass of probiotic milk each day can help reduce belly fat. Photo By sweetbeetandgreenbean/Courtesy Flickr.

For the study, 87 overweight people were assigned to drink 200 grams of milk with or without probiotics for 12 weeks. At the end of the trial, the group that drank probiotic milk had a 4.6 percent decrease in abdominal fat and a 1.6 percent drop in body weight. Average body mass index and waste and hips circumference also took a dip.

Probiotics are good bacteria that live in our digestive system and help keep us healthy. Although researchers aren’t quite sure yet how probiotics factor into weight loss (one popular theory is that they affect how the body processes calories for energy), previous studies have shown that the levels of good bacteria are higher in people who maintain a healthy weight and lower in those who are overweight.

  • Published on Aug 20, 2010
Tagged with: Reader Contributions
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