Gut Flora Related With Diet
Human health is affected by diet, partly by modulating the gut microbiome composition. Humans coexist with their gut microbiota as mutualists, but sometimes this relationship may become pathogenic as obesity or diabetes, and factors including age, genetics or diet might trigger changes in that composition. Of these factors, diet is the easiest to modify, so it presents a simple route for therapeutic interventions.
Studies and statistics tests as Permanova or Spearman correlations, tested nutrient microbiome association to identify the different bacterial genera in gut microbiota. Gut microflora is mainly composed by three enterotypes: Prevotella, Bacteroides and Ruminococcus. There is an association between the concentration of each microbial community and dietary components.
Actually, there exists a relationship between gut microbiota and food nutrients. For example, Prevotella is related with carbohydrates and simple sugars, indicating an association with a carbohydrate-based diet more typical of agrarian societies, while Bacteroides enterotypes is associated with animal proteins, aminoacids and satured fats, typical components of a Western diet. That means that depending on the nutrients consumed in diet one enterotype will dominate over the other.
Gut microbiome can be changed by following a long-term diet. For instance, people whose microbiome is predominated by Bacteroides (diet based on high levels of protein and fat) and change their dietary patterns (diet based on high levels of carbohydrates), will get a Prevotella enterotype in a long-term.
This relation may be interesting in medical field as the long term dietary interventions may allow modulation of an individual's enterotype to improve health.
Read more about this topic: Gut Flora
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