Childhood diet can modify the gut microbiome for life

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• Source: University of California - Riverside


• Date: 03 Feb,2021

Eating too much fat and sugar for a child can alter your microbiome for life, even if you later learn to eat healthier, a new study in mice suggests.

The study by UC Riverside researchers is among the first to demonstrate a significant decrease in the total number and diversity of gut bacteria in mature mice fed an unhealthy diet as juveniles.

We studied mice, but the effect we observed is equivalent to kids having a Western diet, high in fat and sugar and their gut microbiome still being affected up to six years after puberty.”

Theodore Garland, Evolutionary Physiologist, University of California – Riverside

A paper describing the analysis has recently been published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

The microbiome refers to all the bacteria and fungi, parasites, and viruses that live on and within a human or animal. Most of these microorganisms are present in the intestines, and the majority of them are useful, stimulating the immune system, breaking down food and helping synthesize key vitamins.

In a healthy body, there is a balance of pathogenic and beneficial organisms. But if the balance is disturbed, either through the use of antibiotics, illness, or poor diet, the body could become vulnerable to illness.

In this study, Garland’s team looked for impacts on the microbiome after dividing their mice into four groups: half fed the standard,’healthy’ diet, half fed the less healthy’Western’ diet, half using a running wheel for exercise, and half without.

Following three weeks spent on these diets, all mice were returned to a normal diet and no exercise, which is normally how mice are kept in a lab. At the 14-week mark, the team examined the diversity and abundance of bacteria in the animals.

They found that the amount of bacteria like Muribaculum intestinale was significantly reduced in the Western diet group.

Analysis also revealed that the gut bacteria are sensitive to the amount of exercise that the mice got. Muribaculum bacteria increased in mice fed a normal diet who had access to a running wheel and decreased in mice on a high-fat diet if they had exercise or not.

Researchers believe this species of bacteria, and the family of bacteria which it belongs to, might influence the amount of energy available to its host. Research continues into other purposes that this sort of bacteria may have.

One other effect of note was the increase in a highly similar bacteria species which were improved after five weeks of treadmill training in a study by other researchers, suggesting that exercise alone may raise its presence.

Overall, the UCR researchers found that early-life Western diet had more long-lasting effects on the microbiome than did early-life exercise.

Garland’s team want to repeat this experiment and take samples at additional points in time, to better understand when the changes in mouse microbiomes first look, and if they extend into even after phases of life.

Regardless of if the effects first appear, however, the investigators say it is significant that they were observed so long after changing the diet, then changing it back.

The takeaway, Garland said, is essentially,”You aren’t only what you eat, but what you ate as a kid!”