Probiotics During Pregnancy May Curb Future Obesity

AMSTERDAM—One year after giving birth, women were less likely to have the most dangerous kind of obesity if they had been given probiotics from the first trimester of pregnancy, according to new research presented at presented at the European Congress on Obesity.

“The results of our study, the first to demonstrate the impact of probiotics-supplemented dietary counseling on adiposity, were encouraging,” said Kirsi Laitinen, a nutritionist and senior lecturer at the University of Turku in Finland. “The women who got the probiotics fared best. One year after childbirth, they had the lowest levels of central obesity as well as the lowest body fat percentage.”

“Central obesity, where overall obesity is combined with a particularly fat belly, is considered especially unhealthy,” she said. “We found it in 25 percent of the women who had received the probiotics along with dietary counseling, compared with 43 percent in the women who received diet advice alone.”