Contribution of diet to gut microbiota and related host cardiometabolic health: diet-gut interaction in human health

ABSTRACT

Obesity and cardiometabolic diseases in both developed and developing counties in a state of nutrition transition are often related to diet, which also play a major role in shaping human gut microbiota. The human gut harbors diverse microbes that play an essential role in the well-being of their host. Complex interactions between diet and microorganisms may lead to beneficial or detrimental outcomes to host cardiometabolic health. Despite numerous studies using rodent models indicated that high-fat diet may disrupt protective functions of the intestinal barrier and contribute to inflammatory processes, evidence from population-based study is still limited. In our recent study of a 6-month randomized controlled-feeding trial, we showed that high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet was associated with unfavorable changes in gut microbiota, fecal microbial metabolites, and plasma proinflammatory factors in healthy young adults. Here, we provide an overview and extended discussion of our key findings, and outline important future directions.

KEYWORDS:

• Diet
• dietary fat
• non-digestible carbohydrates
• n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids
• gut microbiota
• cardiometabolic health

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2018M642466 and 2019T12058]. The funders of the study had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the manuscript.