No antibiotics were involved but the WTP diet consisted of 1344Cal daily diet of canned porridge (. . ."4 cans of gruel per day" . . .) - Quoted from 'Supplimental Material' to the original study publication http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/ism.... But, there is absolutely no specific information as to the actual ingredients of the "porridge/gruel" so there seems to be no way to actually repeat this research or try the diet individually.
Please stop oversimplifying. With the existence of the bacteria, mice were obese. By means of their diet and prebiotics, they were able to reduce the levels of this bacteria in their subject.
Could be just the caloric deficit, could be the bacteria. It's an interesting correlation and should be explored further.
