London, March 26 (ANI): For those attending gruelling gym sessions to lose weight, here's a simple way to get rid of those extra pounds - let your gut bacteria do the hard work for you, says a new research.

Gut bacteria play a crucial role in digestion. In 2009, researchers found that replacing the bacteria in mouse intestines with human gut flora decreased the amount of fat absorbed by the gut, reports New Scientist.

Now, Yukio Kadooka of Snow Brand Milk Products, a dairy company in Saitama, Japan, and colleagues have found that increasing levels of one type of human gut microbe can help people shed excess weight.

In the study, the researchers gave 87 overweight volunteers 100 grams of fermented milk - which is used to make yoghurt - twice a day, while they continued with their normal diets.

The milk drunk by half of the group was enriched with Lactobacillus gasseri.

After 12 weeks, these volunteers had lost an average of 1 kilogram, while their counterparts showed no change in weight.

Scans revealed that they had lost 4.6 per cent of their 'bad', visceral fat, which surrounds internal organs and is implicated in metabolic syndrome, and 3.3 per cent of their subcutaneous fat.

Hip and waist circumference also went down by an average of 1.7 and 1.5 centimetres respectively.

The study has been published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (ANI)