Five things you might be surprised affect weight

Why do some struggle more to lose weight than others?

People might think battling obesity is down to sheer willpower, but medical research says otherwise. Here are five potentially surprising factors that can affect your weight, as unearthed by The Truth About Obesity .

1. Gut microbes

Gillian and Jackie are twins - but one weighs over six stone (41kg) more than the other.

Prof Tim Spector has been tracking their progress over 25 years, as part of the Twins Research UK study.

He believes a lot of their weight differences are down to the tiny organisms - microbes - that live deep in the gut.

"Every time you eat anything, you're feeding a hundred trillion microbes. You're never dining alone," he says.

A stool sample from each twin revealed Gillian, the thinner of the two, had a very diverse range of microbes, whereas Jackie had very few species living in her gut.

"The greater the diversity, the skinnier the person. If you're carrying too much weight, your microbes aren't as diverse as they should be," says Prof Spector, who found the same pattern in a study of 5,000 people.

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