Effect of Chitosan Supplementation and Lifestyle Changes on Health and Gut Microbiota in Icelandic Females With Obesity
Thelma Rún Rúnarsdóttir, Sigurlaug Skírnisdóttir, Hildur Thors, Hjördís Harðardóttir, Karla F. Corral‐Jara, Alexandra M. Klonowski, Þórhallur Ingi Halldórsson, Marta Guðjónsdóttir · 2026
Read Effect of Chitosan Supplementation and Lifestyle Changes on Health and Gut Microbiota in Icelandic Females With Obesity by Thelma Rún Rúnarsdóttir, Sigurlaug Skírnisdóttir, Hildur Thors, Hjördís Harðardóttir, Karla F. Corral‐Jara, Alexandra M. Klonowski, Þórhallur Ingi Halldórsson, Marta Guðjónsdóttir (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13416228.txt.
Description
Rúnarsdóttir and colleagues run a double blind trial in Iceland. It asks what a shellfish derived supplement, chitosan, adds to a lifestyle program for women with obesity. Chitosan is sold as a fat binder, but proof is thin. Their 2026 study randomizes thirty three women to three grams a day of chitosan or placebo for twelve weeks, inside a rehabilitation program. It tracks body makeup by DXA, strength, blood pressure, and gut microbes from stool.
The lifestyle program did the heavy lifting: grip strength, endurance, lean mass, and self rated health all rose, while body fat and blood pressure fell, in both arms. Chitosan's fingerprint was microbial, lowering the ratio between two bacteria groups without singling out any one species. Women with the highest body mass index lost microbe diversity regardless of arm. With thirty three participants, the authors frame the microbe shifts as leads for trials, not verdicts.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Thelma Rún Rúnarsdóttir, Sigurlaug Skírnisdóttir, Hildur Thors, Hjördís Harðardóttir, Karla F. Corral‐Jara, Alexandra M. Klonowski, Þórhallur Ingi Halldórsson, Marta Guðjónsdóttir |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 42 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |