Adherence to a Mediterranean Diet Influences the Fecal Metabolic Profile of Microbial-Derived Phenolics in a Spanish Cohort of Middle-Age and Older People

Abstract

Despite the evidence regarding the influence of certain polyphenol food sources on the metabolic profile in feces, the association between the different phenolics provided by the diet and the fecal phenolic profile has not been elucidated. In this study, the composition of phenolic metabolites in fecal solutions was analyzed by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS in 74 volunteers. This fecal phenolic profile showed a high interindividual variation of the different compounds analyzed, phenylacetic and phenylpropionic acids being the major classes of phenolic metabolites excreted in feces. Subjects with higher adherence to a Mediterranean dietary pattern presented greater fecal concentrations of benzoic and 3-hydroxyphenylacetic acids, positively correlated with the intake of the principal classes and subclasses of polyphenols and fibers, and higher levels of Clostridium cluster XVIa and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. These results provide a link among the Mediterranean dietary pattern, the bioactive compounds of the diet, and the fecal metabolic phenolic profile.

Aging Gut Microbiota at the Cross-Road between Nutrition, Physical Frailty, and Sarcopenia: Is There a Gut–Muscle Axis?

“…Several studies have also recently demonstrated that adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet is associated with beneficial gut microbiota characteristics, including higher biodiversity, over-representation of Prevotella , and under-representation of opportunistic pathogens [ 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ].…”

An exposome perspective: Early-life events and immune development in a changing world

“…149 Moreover, interaction of GIT microbes with dietary phytochemicals is a bidirectional loop, which promotes microbial diversity and reduces systemic oxidative stress and inflammatory burden. 150,151 Geographic variations in childhood gut colonization patterns have been implicated in differential risk for allergy and autoimmunity for many years 152 ; however, new metagenomic analyses add a new dimension to this story, revealing striking differences in dominant LPS variants produced by fecal bacteria of children from regions with a high prevalence of allergy and early-onset autoimmunity. 153 Children from regions with more prevalent immune disease (Finland) show LPS subtypes with markedly reduced immunogenicity derived from Bacteroides species compared with LPS derived largely from Escherichia coli in children from areas of lower disease prevalence (Russia), reflecting recognized differences in relative species abundance.…”

Nutrition and the Immune System: A Complicated Tango

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