Diet and nutrition influence the microbiome in the colonic mucosa

The diet is important for the maintenance of human health, but its underlying mechanism is not yet fully understood. Now, a team of researchers has shed light on the link between diet and health, particularly with regard to the composition of the microbiome in the human colonic mucosa.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have linked the quality of food with the structure and composition of the microbiome in the colonic mucosa, thus providing insight into the underlying mechanism to the impact of the disease. On the health.

The intestinal microbiome is known to play an important role in modulating the risk of chronic disease. The study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shows that diet plays an equally important role in the formation of the microbiome and therefore has an impact on overall health.

Researchers have discovered that a healthy or quality diet is badociated with potentially beneficial bacteria and, on the contrary, that a poor diet is linked to an increase in the number of potentially pathogenic bacteria. Therefore, they encourage the fact that one of the ways to modify the microbiome is to use a diet, which can be an approach to reduce the risk of chronic disease.

The intestinal microbiome

The human intestinal microbiome consists of tens of billions of resident microorganisms, including bacterial. There are more than 1,000 different species of bacteria with more than 3 million genes, 150 times more than human genes.

Microbiome in the human intestine. Image Credit: Alpha Tauri 3D Graphics / Shutterstock

Recently, a growing body of knowledge is proving the health benefits of the gut microbiome. There is also a growing interest in the possibility of modifying the gut microbiota. For example, a change in diet changes the microbial composition.

Diet is a major factor affecting the structure of the microbial community in the intestine. This, in turn, can affect the ability of beneficial and harmful microorganisms to colonize it. Apart from this, human intestinal flora can have an impact on nutrient uptake, energy recovery, vitamin synthesis, carcinogen metabolism, chronic inflammation, metabolic response, and immune system response. of the body. All of these factors have an impact on the risk of developing chronic diseases.

"A new contribution to this work is that we have examined the microbiome badociated with the colonic mucosa.Most of the other studies on the human intestinal microbiome have used stool samples," said Dr. Li Jiao, badociate professor of medicine. Gastroenterology and member of the L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center of Baylor College of Medicine, explained.

"We have examined the microbiome badociated with the mucous membranes of the colon, because we know that this microbiome is different from that of stool samples. It is said that it is more related to human immunity and host-microbiome interaction than the microbiome of stool samples, "she said. added.

Food quality affects the intestinal flora

Researchers used modern sequencing techniques to study the composition of the bacterial community living in colonic mucosal biopsy samples. They badyzed the bacterial structure using 16S rRNA gene sequencing (V4 version) in 97 biopsies of colonic mucosa obtained from colonoscopy samples of different colon segments of 34 patients. These patients, in good health and without polyps, underwent a colonoscopy at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston from 2013 to 2017.

The team found that a good quality diet, recommended by the US nutritional guidelines, had a positive impact on the abundance of beneficial bacteria in the gut. These species of bacteria are those with anti-inflammatory properties, which can help reduce the risk of chronic diseases.

Dietary recommendations for Americans recommend eating a diet that includes most calories from grains, vegetables, fruits, lean meats, poultry, fish, and low-fat dairy products.

On the other hand, a poor diet has been linked to the abundance of potentially harmful bacteria, including fusobacteria, a type of bacterium badociated with colorectal cancer.

The team also wants to study the potential benefits of dietary modification and the use of prebiotics or probiotics on a potentially dangerous gut microbiome in people who consume an unhealthy diet.

The researchers said that non-modifiable factors such as genetic aging and aging also influenced the risk of disease, but they could not be modified. Meanwhile, diet is an excellent factor that can be modified, providing a good tactic to develop a microbiome to promote health in general.