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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2025 Mar 28;17(7):1191.
doi: 10.3390/nu17071191.

A 12-Week, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Lactobacillus plantarum LMT1-48 on Body Fat Loss

Sung-Bum Lee  1 , Byungwook Yoo  2 , Chaemin Baeg  3 , Jiae Yun  4 , Dong-Wook Ryu  4 , Gyungcheon Kim  5   6 , Seongok Kim  5   6 , Hakdong Shin  5   6 , Ju Hee Lee  7
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

A 12-Week, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Lactobacillus plantarum LMT1-48 on Body Fat Loss

Sung-Bum Lee et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of probiotics for body fat reduction in obese individuals.

Methods: A total of 106 participants with a body mass index between 25 and 30 kg/m2 were randomly assigned to either the experimental group treating with Lactobacillus plantarum LMT1-48 or the placebo group in the placebo-controlled clinical trial. Body composition was assessed by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and computed tomography. Fecal samples between the groups were contrasted via DNA sequencing for evaluation of the microbiota and its diversity.

Results: After 12 weeks of follow-up period, the body fat mass decreased significantly, from 30.0 ± 4.4 to 28.3 ± 4.1 kg in the experimental group (p = 0.009). The percentage of body fat in the two groups showed a similar trend (p = 0.004).

Conclusions: LMT1-48 also positively influenced the microbial taxa linked to obesity analyzed by gut microbiome sequencing. LMT1-48 is a safe and collaborative agent to reduce obesity.

Keywords: Lactobacillus plantarum; body fat loss; obesity; probiotics.

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Conflict of interest statement

J.Y. and D.-w.R. are employees of Medytox Inc., Suwon, Republic of Korea. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted without any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Compositional and structural changes in the gut microbial community pre- and post-treatment in both experimental and placebo groups. Alpha diversity was assessed using (A) Faith’s pd, (B) observed feature counts, and (C) Shannon entropy. Data shown and error bars are mean ± SD (Kruskal–Wallis test; NS, nonsignificant). Beta diversity was visualized with PCoA based on unweighted UniFrac distance (D,E) and weighted UniFrac distance. Statistical differences were evaluated with PERMANOVA. (F) Intra-group distances using unweighted (top) and weighted (bottom) UniFrac distances. Data shown and error bars are mean ± SD (non-parametric t-test, *** p < 0.001). “P” and “E” on the graph represent the placebo and experimental groups, respectively.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Alteration of gut microbial composition before and after probiotic treatment. (A) Relative abundance plot of bacterial taxa at the genus level according to probiotic intervention. (B) Bar chart denoting differentially abundant taxa according to probiotic treatment using LEfSe (LDA > 2). The LDA scores indicate the effect sizes of the taxonomy with the difference in relative abundances between pre- and post-treatment.
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