Gut microbes may be critical in helping people benefit from healthy foods

In an analysis of more than 50,000 individuals from around the world, carriers of intestinal Blastocystis, a single-celled organism labeled as a parasite or harmless organism but commonly found in the digestive system, were associated with indicators of good cardiovascular health. and reduced body fat.

The research was published in Cell by an international team led by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

“The effects of Blastocystis on health and disease are controversial and likely context-dependent, but our research suggests that it may play a beneficial role in how diet influences human health and disease,” said co-lead author Long H. Nguyen, MD, MS, a physician-researcher in the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit and Division of Gastroenterology at MGH, and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “At the very least, its ubiquity may indicate a non-pathogenic role.”

Nguyen, who is also a Chen Institute Department of Medicine Transformative Scholar at MGH, and colleagues sought to determine the relationship between intestinal blastocystis, diet, and subsequent cardiometabolic health outcomes, including overweight/obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

To do this, they conducted a large-scale study integrating and harmonizing data from nearly 57,000 individuals from 32 countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa, focusing on Blastocystis and investigating whether its presence the effects of different diet foods changes. on the cardiometabolic health of individuals.

“We found that the presence and abundance of Blastocystis varied by region and was influenced by diet,” said Nguyen.

Blastocystis was associated with the intake of certain foods and general dietary patterns that favored healthier plant-based and minimally processed foods. Furthermore, Blastocystis was almost never found in neonates, indicating that it is likely acquired later in life and was even found in feces from 595 AD onwards, indicating that it is not strictly speaking a marker of a more modern microbiome configuration.

Notably, higher Blastocystis levels were linked to better short-term markers of cardiometabolic health. For example, the team observed more favorable blood sugar and lipid profiles in individuals with higher Blastocystis levels, indicating a potential positive effect on cardiometabolic health beyond the effect of a healthy diet alone. Also, lower levels of Blastocystis have been linked to long-term outcomes such as obesity.

Similarly, in adults participating in a six-month personalized dietary intervention study, improvements in diet quality were associated with subsequent increases in the prevalence and abundance of Blastocystis.

“Overall, our findings suggest a potentially beneficial modulatory role for Blastocystis, which may help explain individualized responses to diet and differences in digestion depending on the presence and level of Blastocystis,” said Nguyen.

“Our results also indicate that Blastocystis may not be a parasite with deleterious host effects, but rather a beneficial component of the human gut microbiome.”

Additional studies are needed to determine whether increasing Blastocystis levels is a viable disease prevention strategy, just as a growing number of studies are investigating the effects of modulating gut bacteria to ward off a range of medical conditions.