Assessing the Influence of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivore Oriented Westernized Dietary Styles on Human Gut Microbiota: A Cross Sectional Study
Open accessAbstract
Diet and lifestyle have a strong influence on gut microbiota, which in turn has important implications on a variety of health-related aspects. Despite great advances in the field, it remains unclear to which extent the composition of the gut microbiota is modulated by the intake of animal derived products, compared to a vegetable based diet. Here the specific impact of vegan, vegetarian, and omnivore feeding type on the composition of gut microbiota of 101 adults was investigated among groups homogeneous for variables known to have a role in modulating gut microbial composition such as age, anthropometric variables, ethnicity, and geographic area. The results displayed a picture where the three different dietetic profiles could be well distinguished on the basis of participant's dietetic regimen. Regarding the gut microbiota; vegetarians had a significantly greater richness compared to omnivorous. Moreover, counts of Bacteroidetes related operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were greater in vegans and vegetarians compared to omnivores. Interestingly considering the whole bacterial community composition the three cohorts were unexpectedly similar, which is probably due to their common intake in terms of nutrients rather than food, e.g., high fat content and reduced protein and carbohydrate intake. This finding suggests that fundamental nutritional choices such as vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore do influence the microbiota but do not allow to infer conclusions on gut microbial composition, and suggested the possibility for a preferential impact of other variables, probably related to the general life style on shaping human gut microbial community in spite of dietary influence. Consequently, research were individuals are categorized on the basis of their claimed feeding types is of limited use for scientific studies, since it appears to be oversimplified.
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Characteristic patterns in the gut microbiota for plant-based diets include high bacterial richness, increased numbers of Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, Ruminococcus, Eubacterium rectale, Roseburia, Prevotella, F. prausnitzii, and Anaerostipes, but lower abundance of Clostridium sensu stricto, C. perfringens, C. histolyticum, and Odoribacter.
“Thus, characteristic patterns in the gut microbiota for these types of diets include high bacterial richness, increased numbers of Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, Ruminococcus, Eubacterium rectale, Roseburia, Prevotella, F. prausnitzii, and Anaerostipes, but lower abundance of Clostridium sensu stricto, C. perfringens, C. histolyticum, and Odoribacter (42,(45)(46)(47)(48)(49).”
From Diet and the Microbiota–Gut–Brain Axis: Sowing the Seeds of Good Mental Health (2021) · cites this paper as [46]
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References 46 · Cited by 125
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Benjamini Y. Hochberg Y. (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. J. R. Stat. Soc. B 57 289– 300. 10.2307/2346101 · DOI
- Authors
- Losasso, C., Eckert, E. M., Mastrorilli, E., Villiger, J., Mancin, M., Patuzzi, I., Di Cesare, A., Cibin, V., Barrucci, F., Pernthaler, J., Corno, G., & Ricci, A.
- Affiliations
- Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IT)
- Institute of Ecosystem Study (IT)
- University of Padua (IT)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Losasso, Carmen
- ORCID
- Venue
- Frontiers in Microbiology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2018-03-05
- Volume
- 9
- Pages
- 317-317
- ISSN
- 1664-302X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5844980
- OpenAlex
- W2790675633
- Cited by
- 125
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 4.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Frontiers in Microbiology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Padua Research Archive (University of Padova) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- CINECA IRIS Institutial Research Information System (University of Genoa) (submittedVersion)
- CNR ExploRA (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- Ministero della Salute (2010-RF-2317095)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Nutritional Studies and Diet
- Health Sciences › Dentistry › Periodontics › Oral microbiology and periodontitis research
- Keywords
- gut microbiota, vegan diet, vegetarian diet, omnivorous diet, Western diet, diet and microbiome, Bacteroidetes, microbial diversity, dietary classification, lifestyle factors
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