Microbiome-targeted diets that alter immune status

Abstract

0123456789();: Nature reviews | GastroenteroloGy & HepatoloGy The results of a new prospective, randomized multi-omics study show that dietary interventions can produce robust and reproducible changes in the immune system, suggesting their potential to improve immune status as well as gut microbiome function. “The microbiome of industrialized populations has lost diversity compared to our ancestral microbiota, coincident with increasing rates of chronic inflammatory diseases,” states Justin Sonnenburg, a corresponding author of the study. “We were curious whether bringing back high levels of plant-based fibre or non-pathogenic food-associated microbes (that is, those in fermented foods) could positively impact the microbiome– immune axis in healthy adults,” he continues. In this study, a diet rich in fermented foods led to increased microbiome diversity, altered microbiome composition and decreases in markers of chronic inflammation. A high-fibre diet led to increased representation of glycan-degrading enzymes and a slow change in microbiome composition along with three divergent trajectories of immune response. The immune changes were detected via immune cell signalling assays and proteomic studies of cytokines and immunomodulatory molecules. “Participants on the high-fermented food diet didn’t decrease their inflammatory signalling in just one or two markers — 19 different inflammatory proteins and 13 different immune cell signalling parameters decreased,” notes Hannah Wastyk, the study’s first author. “Our study is the first, to our knowledge, to report extensive immune profiling across time to deeply G U T M I C R O B I OTA