Vegan Diet Is Associated With Favorable Effects on the Metabolic Performance of Intestinal Microbiota: A Cross-Sectional Multi-Omics Study
Journal article, 2022
Background and Aim: Plant-based diets are associated with potential health benefits, but the contribution of gut microbiota remains to be clarified. We aimed to identify differences in key features of microbiome composition and function with relevance to metabolic health in individuals adhering to a vegan vs. omnivore diet. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved lean, healthy vegans (n = 62) and omnivore (n = 33) subjects. We assessed their glucose and lipid metabolism and employed an integrated multi-omics approach (16S rRNA sequencing, metabolomics profiling) to compare dietary intake, metabolic health, gut microbiome, and fecal, serum, and urine metabolomes. Results: The vegans had more favorable glucose and lipid homeostasis profiles than the omnivores. Long-term reported adherence to a vegan diet affected only 14.8% of all detected bacterial genera in fecal microbiome. However, significant differences in vegan and omnivore metabolomes were observed. In feces, 43.3% of all identified metabolites were significantly different between the vegans and omnivores, such as amino acid fermentation products p-cresol, scatole, indole, methional (lower in the vegans), and polysaccharide fermentation product short- and medium-chain fatty acids (SCFAs, MCFAs), and their derivatives (higher in the vegans). Vegan serum metabolome differed markedly from the omnivores (55.8% of all metabolites), especially in amino acid composition, such as low BCAAs, high SCFAs (formic-, acetic-, propionic-, butyric acids), and dimethylsulfone, the latter two being potential host microbiome co-metabolites. Using a machine-learning approach, we tested the discriminative power of each dataset. Best results were obtained for serum metabolome (accuracy rate 91.6%). Conclusion: While only small differences in the gut microbiota were found between the groups, their metabolic activity differed substantially. In particular, we observed a significantly different abundance of fermentation products associated with protein and carbohydrate intakes in the vegans. Vegans had significantly lower abundances of potentially harmful (such as p-cresol, lithocholic acid, BCAAs, aromatic compounds, etc.) and higher occurrence of potentially beneficial metabolites (SCFAs and their derivatives).
protein fermentation
short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs)
vegan diet
omics signature
metabolic health
Author
Magdalena Prochazkova
Kralovske Vinohrady University Hospital
Eva Budinska
Masaryk University
Marek Kuzma
Czech Academy of Sciences
Helena Pelantova
Czech Academy of Sciences
Jaromir Hradecky
Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CULS)
Marie Heczkova
Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Nikola Daskova
Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Charles University
Miriam Bratova
Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Istvan Modos
Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Petra Videnska
Masaryk University
Petra Splichalova
Masaryk University
Solomon A. Sowah
University Hospital Heidelberg
German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Maria Kralova
Masaryk University
Marina Henikova
Kralovske Vinohrady University Hospital
Eliska Selinger
Kralovske Vinohrady University Hospital
Krystof Klima
Czech Academy of Sciences
Karel Chalupsky
Czech Academy of Sciences
Radislav Sedlacek
Czech Academy of Sciences
Rikard Landberg
Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Food and Nutrition Science
Tilman Kühn
University Hospital Heidelberg
Queen's University Belfast
Jan Gojda
Kralovske Vinohrady University Hospital
Monika Cahova
Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Frontiers in Nutrition
2296861X (eISSN)
Vol. 8 783302Subject Categories
Food Science
Microbiology
Nutrition and Dietetics
DOI
10.3389/fnut.2021.783302
PubMed
35071294