A diet rich in healthy foods and vegetables is linked to the presence and abundance of certain intestinal microbes that are also associated with a lower risk of developing diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, according to recent results from an international study on a large scale that was co – senior author of Andrew T. Chan of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) affiliated with Harvard. The report was published in Nature Medicine.
“This study demonstrates a clear association between specific microbial species in the gut, certain foods and the risk of some common diseases,” says Chan, a gastroenterologist, head of the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit at MGH and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “We hope to be able to use this information to help people avoid serious health problems by changing their diet to personalize their intestinal microbiome.”
The PREDICT 1 metagenomic study (Personalized responses to the diet composition assay 1) analyzed detailed data on the composition of the participants’ microbiomes, their eating habits and cardiometabolic blood biomarkers. The researchers found strong evidence that the microbiome is linked to specific foods and diets and that, in turn, its composition is also associated with levels of metabolic disease biomarkers. In addition, the microbiome has a greater association with these markers than other factors, such as genetics.
“Studying the interrelationship between the microbiome, diet and disease involves many variables because people’s diets tend to be personalized and can change a lot over time,” explains Chan. “Two of the strengths of this essay are the number of participants and the detailed information we collect.”
PREDICT 1 is an international collaboration to study the links between the diet, the microbiome and the biomarkers of cardiometabolic health. The researchers gathered microbiome sequence data, detailed long-term dietary information and results from hundreds of cardiometabolic blood markers from just over 1,100 participants in the UK and the United States
The researchers found that participants who ate a diet rich in healthy foods and vegetables were more likely to have high levels of specific intestinal microbes. The composition of the participants’ intestinal microbiomes was strongly associated with specific nutrients, foods, food groups and general dietary indices (general diet composition). The researchers also found obesity biomarkers based on robust microbiomes, as well as markers of cardiovascular disease and impaired glucose tolerance.
Epidemiologist Tim Spector of King’s College London, who started the PREDICT study, says: “When you eat, you are not just feeding your body, you are feeding trillions of microbes that live inside your intestines.”
For example, having a microbiome rich in Prevotella copri and Blastocystis species was associated with maintaining a favorable blood sugar level after a meal. Other species have been associated with lower levels of blood fats and post-meal inflammation markers. The trends they found were so consistent that the researchers believe that microbiome data can be used to determine the risk of cardiometabolic disease among people who do not yet have symptoms and possibly prescribe a personalized diet designed specifically to improve the health of someone.
“We were surprised to see such large, clear groups of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ microbes emerging from our analysis,” says Nicola Segata, professor and principal investigator at the Computational Metagenomics Laboratory at the University of Trento, Italy, and coordinator of the analysis the data of the microbiome under study. “And it’s intriguing to see that microbiologists know so little about many of these microbes that they don’t even have their names yet.”
Curtis Huttenhower, senior co-author who co-directs Harvard TH Chan Microbiome at the Public Health Center, adds: “Both the diet and the intestinal microbiome are highly personalized. PREDICT is one of the first studies to begin to unveil this complex molecular web at scale. “
Francesco Asnicar and Sarah Berry are co-authors of the study. Other collaborators were from the health sciences company ZOE, which supported the research.