How gut bacteria and diet change energy balance and body weight
Official title: Defining the Quantitative Functional Mechanisms that Underly Gut Microbiome-Diet Interactions Contributing to Human Energy Balance
Funded at Adventhealth Orlando · NIH-11322053 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project tests whether switching between a typical Western diet and a high-fiber microbiome-enhancing diet causes people with overweight or obesity to lose more calories in their stool and alters how their bodies use energy.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Adventhealth Orlando NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Orlando, United States) |
| Project start | July 15, 2024 |
| Project end | April 30, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $533,061 |
| NIH project number | 5R01DK140328-03 |
| Project ID | NIH-11322053 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are adults with overweight or obesity who can take part in inpatient, tightly controlled feeding visits and sample collection.
✕Less likely to help
People without overweight or obesity, or those unable to stay for inpatient diet-controlled visits, are unlikely to receive direct benefit from participation.
What this research studies
You would live in the hospital while researchers control exactly what you eat and carefully measure calories eaten, calories burned, and calories lost in stool. Each participant follows both a Western-style diet and a microbiome-enhancer diet in random order so everyone serves as their own comparison. Scientists will analyze stool and other samples to see if extra calories are being shunted into growing gut microbes (microbial biomass) instead of being absorbed by the body. The work aims to pin down the precise ways diet-driven changes in gut bacteria change human energy balance.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could point to diets or microbiome-targeted approaches that help people with overweight or obesity lose or maintain weight by increasing calorie loss in stool.
How similar studies have gone: Earlier controlled-feeding work from this group found diet-driven microbiome changes linked to increased fecal energy loss, but the exact causal mechanisms remain largely unproven.
Where this research is happening
-
Adventhealth Orlando
Orlando, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Corbin, Karen Davidowitz — Adventhealth Orlando
- Study coordinator: Corbin, Karen Davidowitz
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.