Dados do Trabalho

Título

DESIGNED PREBIOTIC FIBER MIXTURES FOR GUT MICROBIOTA AND WHOLE-BODY HEALTH

Introdução

Prebiotic dietary fibers have been used for gut microbiota modulation to promote local and systemic health benefits. Despite the high diversity of beneficial microbes in the large intestine and their diverse preferences for fiber substrates, most prebiotics are composed of single fibers.

Material e Métodos

We have conducted two separate in vitro fecal fermentation trials with healthy and diseased subjects to develop strategies to design prebiotic blends that would give superior support for the human gut microbiota structure and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production.

Resultados e Discussão

Initially, we showed through in vitro fecal fermentations that designed mixtures that promote complementary groups of microbes in the large intestine have synergistic effects related to gut community structure and metabolism. Compared to single fibers, designed mixtures were shown to support a wider variety of health-related bacteria (Kruskal-Wallis test: P<0.01 for Shannon Diversity index), including butyrate producers and several taxa not promoted by any of their individual components. The synergistic effects of fiber combinations were also noted in terms of SCFA production, with designed mixtures leading to ~25% higher SCFA levels than the average produced by their individual components. In another in vitro trial such effects were observed across different conditions (healthy individuals, Parkinson's Disease, Crohn's Disease, and Ulcerative Colitis) and also showed a higher degree of consistency in responses across individuals compared to individual fibers.

Conclusão

Taken together, our results underscore the potential of strategically designed fiber blends as superior prebiotic approaches to support a varied health-related microbial population, enhance SCFA production, and achieve more uniform responses to prebiotic dietary fibers among people.