Intestinal microbiota and childhood obesity: etiopathogenic and therapeutic implications

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María Martín Martín
Enrique Palomo Atance

Abstract

Background: Childhood obesity is presented as an increasingly prevalent disease in the 21st century. Nevertheless, this increment is not directly proportional to caloric intake or sedentarism. This matter has entailed initiating new investigations and situating the intestinal microbiota as a new risk factor for obesity in the early stages of life. Subject: A bibliographic review has been carried out through scientific literature research from 2013 to 2021. The medical databases PubMed, Scielo, Elsevier, and Cochrane have been used, thus obtaining 27 final articles. The cardinal difference between obese patients compared to normal-weight children is the increased Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio. The intestinal microbiota intervenes in the pathogenesis of childhood obesity through five main mechanisms: modifications in bacterial composition, metabolite production, endocannabinoid tone increase, fasting-induced adipocyte factor expression decrease, and modulation of the gastrointestinal tract. Therapeutic strategies for treating childhood obesity through dysbiosis modification are prebiotics and probiotics administration, fecal microbiota transplantation, and physical exercise. Conclusions: As of today, the data still needs to be conclusive, given the scarcity of studies. It is necessary to carry out further experimental investigations and, once more concrete results are obtained, to implement clinical trials of the therapeutic options against specific bacterial groups.

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How to Cite
Martín Martín, M., & Palomo Atance, E. (2023). Intestinal microbiota and childhood obesity: etiopathogenic and therapeutic implications. Pediatría, 56(2), e456. https://doi.org/10.14295/rp.v56i2.456
Section
Review topics

References

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