中药中用的一种被称为“灵芝”的真菌，被发现能通过改变肠道微生物群的组成降低小鼠的肥胖程度。这些结果表明，灵芝补品对于肥胖症和相关疾病的治疗也许会有用，但还需要进一步的研究来证实在人身上是否也有这些效应。

肥胖症的高发是对公共卫生的一大威胁，全世界大约有5亿肥胖的人和14亿体重超重的人。灵芝在亚洲药材中已经被使用了几个世纪，用来促进健康，也曾被提出有抗糖尿病效应。

Hsin-Chih Lai及同事利用一个小鼠模型来研究向用高脂肪饮食饲养的小鼠食物中添加灵芝的一种提取物的效应。这样处理过的小鼠显示出由高脂肪饮食诱导的肠道微生物失衡的逆转和体重降低，同时又保持了肠道屏障的完整性。作者还观察到，将处理过的小鼠的粪便移植给其他肥胖的小鼠，会重现由灵芝提取物的消耗所造成的有益代谢效应。这是灵芝首次被发现有益生和降低体重的功能。（来源：生物360）

Ganoderma lucidum reduces obesity in mice by modulating the composition of the gut microbiota

Abstract  Obesity is associated with low-grade chronic inflammation and intestinal dysbiosis. Ganoderma lucidum is a medicinal mushroom used in traditional Chinese medicine with putative anti-diabetic effects. Here, we show that a water extract of Ganoderma lucidum mycelium (WEGL) reduces body weight, inflammation and insulin resistance in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD). Our data indicate that WEGL not only reverses HFD-induced gut dysbiosis—as indicated by the decreased Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratios and endotoxin-bearing Proteobacteria levels—but also maintains intestinal barrier integrity and reduces metabolic endotoxemia. The anti-obesity and microbiota-modulating effects are transmissible via horizontal faeces transfer from WEGL-treated mice to HFD-fed mice. We further show that high molecular weight polysaccharides (>300 kDa) isolated from the WEGL extract produce similar anti-obesity and microbiota-modulating effects. Our results indicate that G. lucidum and its high molecular weight polysaccharides may be used as prebiotic agents to prevent gut dysbiosis and obesity-related metabolic disorders in obese individuals.

原文链接：http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150623/ncomms8489/full/ncomms8489.html