Can Probiotics Cause Weight Gain?

You’ve seen how they can help with digestive issues, but can probiotic cause weight gain? Let’s break down the facts!
One of the things I often hear from some of my mentees is that they’re frustrated because they put so much effort into making sure they ate right and exercised, and yet their weight loss or weight gain stalls.
Most of us have heard that eating healthy foods and exercising regularly is the key to successful weight management. While this is true, what you may not know is that a lot of researchers are now looking into another factor in healthy weight management. It turns out probiotics can play a role in keeping your body at a healthy weight. But, in some ways, can probiotics cause weight gain?
How Gut Bacteria Influence Weight Loss?
The gut is a complex system of organs and tissues that helps the body digest food and absorb nutrients.
The gut is also home to trillions of bacteria, which are responsible for helping us break down our food and process it into a form that can be absorbed by the body. This is important because if we don’t have enough good bacteria in our gut, we can’t properly digest our food, leading to a whole host of problems.
A healthy gut environment is essential for weight loss because it helps you lose weight by improving your ability to digest and absorb nutrients from your food. When you’re not absorbing enough nutrients from your food, it’s harder for your body to get energy from fats, carbohydrates, and proteins—which is why eating healthier foods will help you lose weight.
Reasons Why Probiotics Can Cause Weight Gain
With a healthy gut, you increase your ability to process the food that you eat. So does this mean that probiotics make you hungry? And does this entail weight gain with probiotics? Let’s take a look at some reasons why probiotics can lead to such:
You’re Taking Obesity-inducing Probiotic Strains
While we have previously busted some probiotic myths, it’s a fact that there are certain strains that could cause you to gain weight. You may have heard of the probiotic strains Bifidobacterium animalis and Lactobacillus reuteri. These two strains are known to cause weight gain due to their ability to stimulate appetite. It’s believed that they do this by increasing ghrelin production, which is a hunger hormone.

Ghrelin levels rise when your stomach is empty and fall after you’ve eaten enough food to make you feel full. When your ghrelin levels are high, it tells your brain that you’re hungry, so it makes sense that taking these obesity-inducing probiotic strains would increase your appetite and lead to weight gain.
The Probiotics’ Potency
That’s right—the probiotics’ potency is yet another reason why you’re gaining weight. This is because gut bacteria have been shown to affect certain hormones that play a role in regulating metabolism and appetite. When these hormones are out of whack, it can lead to unexplained weight gain or loss.
Learn about the best time to take probiotics so you can also monitor the frequency (and quantity!) of your intake.
Failure to Supplement With a Nutritious Diet
Probiotics are only as good as the food you eat, and if you’re consistently eating junk food, your gut bacteria will be less healthy than they could be.
It’s important to take probiotics with a nutritious diet because they help your gut flora (bacteria) grow and thrive. If you don’t eat enough fiber, vitamins, and minerals, then the bacteria in your gut won’t be able to grow and thrive.
If you want to lose weight, it’s important that you eat a well-balanced diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. You should also avoid foods high in saturated fat such as red meat, butter, and cheese.
Do Probiotics Aid in Weight Loss?
In recent years, probiotics have become a popular food supplement and treatment for digestive problems. Research has shown that dietary probiotics can help improve the health of your gut, but does this translate into weight loss? The answer is yes, but it’s not quite as simple as taking a pill or eating yogurt every day.
It all comes down to your body’s microbiome—the trillions of bacteria living inside your body. These microbes are essential to our health, helping us digest food, fight infection and disease, regulate metabolism, and even control our moods!
But when these tiny critters get out of balance (which happens more often than you might think), it can cause some serious issues like bloating and diarrhea—and this may lead to weight gain over time.

Probiotics are beneficial bacteria found in foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, and other fermented dairy products. Some studies suggest that consuming probiotics may help manage weight by altering the composition of gut bacteria towards one that’s more beneficial for overall health.
Probiotics and Weight Loss Risks
Probiotics are live bacteria that can help to improve your digestive health, and they’re often used to treat diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and other conditions. They’re also sometimes used as a weight loss aid because they may help reduce the amount of fat you absorb from food.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about probiotics and weight loss, but there are some things we do know:
- Probiotics, when taken with fiber, help you feel full for longer periods of time. They may also increase the number of cells in your gut that produce hormones that tell your brain you’re full.
- Probiotics can help break down food better so nutrients are absorbed more efficiently by your body instead of being passed through your system undigested.
- Some studies suggest that probiotics may help reduce cholesterol levels in the blood by lowering levels of triglycerides (blood fats) and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol while raising HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels.
Among these, there are many other benefits that can be derived from probiotics such as probiotics for acid reflux and probiotics for migraines.
Diarrhea Treatment With Probiotics
A diarrhea treatment with probiotics is a way to cure your digestive system. It will help you get relief from diarrhea and other issues that are caused by bad bacteria in your stomach. Probiotics are live microorganisms that are found in some foods. They help you digest food and keep your intestines healthy.
When you take this type of treatment, the probiotic strains will start growing in your gut and they’ll fight against any harmful bacteria that are causing diarrhea. This treatment shouldn’t be used by pregnant women or people who have weakened immune systems because it could cause an infection in these people.
Proactively Probiotic: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Which Probiotics Lead To Weight Gain?
Which probiotics cause weight gain? Certain strains of bacteria such as Bifidobacterium animalis and Lactobacillus reuteri have been shown to cause weight gain in animals and humans. One way this happens is by increasing the amount of insulin produced in the body. Insulin is a hormone that helps us store fat—so if you have more insulin, it means your body can store more fat.

Another way probiotics can increase insulin production is by causing inflammation in the gut. When the immune system fights off bad bacteria, it produces chemicals called cytokines. These chemicals trigger inflammation in the gut, which also makes insulin production go up—and that leads to weight gain.
Can Probiotics Cause Bloating and Weight Gain?
Can probiotics cause bloating and weight gain? The short answer is yes. Probiotics can cause bloating and weight gain, but only if you’re taking too many. It’s important to know how much is too much because, with the right amount of probiotics, your weight loss goals will be easier to achieve than ever before.
Do Probiotics Increase Weight Gain?
Do probiotics make you gain weight? Yes. Probiotics help your body break down food more efficiently. When they do their job well, they help you feel fuller faster and make it easier for your body to digest the nutrients from foods—which means fewer calories remain in your system as fat.
But not all probiotics are created equal—and some can cause bloating or other uncomfortable side effects when taken in large doses.
Can Probiotic Increase Appetite?
Yes. Probiotics may also increase your appetite by making you feel hungrier than usual. This could be because they release chemicals called peptides into your bloodstream. These peptides act as hormones that tell you when to eat and how much to eat.
Probiotics may also change how quickly or slowly your body burns calories (metabolism). This could help you lose weight by boosting your metabolism, but it could also make it harder for you to lose weight if your metabolism slows too much.
Finally, probiotics might affect how much fat is stored in the liver or muscles instead of being stored as fat on the hips, thighs, or belly (belly fat).
Conclusion
There may still be a lot more research to be done about what exactly gut bacteria has to do with weight loss, but it’s clear that there’s some connection between the two. In the meantime, though, I would suggest that if you want to lose a few pounds, don’t change everything at once. Instead, try reworking your diet and exercise routine in small steps over time – both of those factors can have a big effect on your gut bacteria.
Looking for a power-packed gut supplement? Try Optima! It helps keep your gut health in check while providing you with the right amount of probiotics that you need every day. Live healthier and live stronger, SuperHumn!