"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7464/full/nature12506.html" Nature has recently published a study which reveals that high levels of bacterial diversity in the gut could benefit obese people. The research has been carried out by "http://www.metahit.eu/" MetaHIT consortium, which in Spain is led by Dr. Francisco Guarner from the Physiology and Pathophysiology of the Digestive Tract group at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR). MetaHIT researchers analyzed the gut flora of 292 inhabitants from Denmark, 169 of which were obese. Results surprised authors because they detected metabolically healthy obese people who had one thing in common: a rich gut bacterial diversity. On the other hand, they detected worse markers in non-obese people with lower levels of bacterial diversity. Dr. Guarner explains in the newspaper "http://www.lavanguardia.com/20130901/54379908585/no-son-els-quilos-es-la-flora-josep-corbella.html" La Vanguardia that "the body max index is useful to classify people according to their weight, but very imprecise to assess the risk for the health of each individual". In that sense, he assures that an analysis of the human gut microbiome "can give us a closer view of the state of health of the patient and can help as to move towards better treatments".