The Effect of Bariatric Procedures on Gut Microbiota in Obese Individuals in United Arab Emirates and Lebanon

Overweight and obesity are worldwide health problems that can affect negatively quality of life. With increasing prevalence of obesity and the failure of compliance to lifestyle, bariatric surgeries have become the treatment of choice to help achieve long term sustainable weight loss. In some cases of bariatric surgery, weight loss stops and there are cases in which obesity manifests itself again; the mechanism underlying the re-appearance of obesity is not known. Recently, the gut microbiota, has been implicated in the etiology of obesity and metabolic syndrome due to its important role in digestion, metabolism and regulating gut peptides and hormones. In accordance with this, it has been shown in mice that obesity can be associated with dysbiosis (Imbalance in gut bacteria) and there has been successful reduction of weight in interventions when microbiota was manipulated. Hypothesis: 1. Emirati participants will have unique microbiota and gut peptides when compared to Lebanese participants. 2. The microbiota and gut peptides variability is significantly different between those with normal weight compared to obese participants undergoing bariatric surgery. 3. The bariatric procedure will have a significant effect on the variability of microbiota, gut peptides, blood chemistry, dietary intake and metabolism among the obese participants. Objectives of the study: 1. Determine the gut microbiota composition of Emirati healthy normal weight participants and compare to that of Lebanese via Illumina sequencing NGS (Next Generation Sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene) of the microbiota from the stool samples. 2. Determine the gut microbiota composition of Emirati obese participants and compare to that of Lebanese counterparts using NGS. 3. Determine the effect of bariatric procedure in UAE and Lebanon respectively on gut microbiota (using NGS), gut peptides in plasma, blood chemistry and metabolism using indirect calorimetry and food intake. Importance of this research: