Early-life exposure to the Great Chinese Famine and gut microbiome disruption across adulthood for type 2 diabetes: three population-based cohort studies

Abstract

Background The early life stage is critical for the gut microbiota establishment and development. We aimed to investigate the lifelong impact of famine exposure during early life on the adult gut microbial ecosystem and examine the association of famine-induced disturbance in gut microbiota with type 2 diabetes. Methods We profiled the gut microbial composition among 11,513 adults (18–97 years) from three independent cohorts and examined the association of famine exposure during early life with alterations of adult gut microbial diversity and composition. We performed co-abundance network analyses to identify keystone taxa in the three cohorts and constructed an index with the shared keystone taxa across the three cohorts. Among each cohort, we used linear regression to examine the association of famine exposure during early life with the keystone taxa index and assessed the correlation between the keystone taxa index and type 2 diabetes using logistic regression adjusted for potential confounders. We combined the effect estimates from the three cohorts using random-effects meta-analysis. Results Compared with the no-exposed control group (born during 1962–1964), participants who were exposed to the famine during the first 1000 days of life (born in 1959) had consistently lower gut microbial alpha diversity and alterations in the gut microbial community during adulthood across the three cohorts. Compared with the no-exposed control group, participants who were exposed to famine during the first 1000 days of life were associated with consistently lower levels of keystone taxa index in the three cohorts (pooled beta − 0.29, 95% CI − 0.43, − 0.15). Per 1-standard deviation increment in the keystone taxa index was associated with a 13% lower risk of type 2 diabetes (pooled odds ratio 0.87, 95% CI 0.80, 0.93), with consistent results across three individual cohorts. Conclusions These findings reveal a potential role of the gut microbiota in the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) hypothesis, deepening our understanding about the etiology of type 2 diabetes.

Alteration of the intestinal microbiota and serum metabolites in a mouse model of Pon1 gene ablation

“…The diversity of gut bacteria has been widely considered a crucial characteristic linked to health status and multiple diseases. It has been previously reported that the stability of α‐diversity indicates a healthy status of the intestinal microbiome, and both suppressed and increased α‐diversity represents a signature of gut microbial disorders, which is frequently associated with diseases, including Pon1 ‐related diseases 30–32 . Studies have concluded that the diversity of fecal bacteria is reduced or significantly altered when the host experiences pathological conditions 30 .…”

The Association of Early-life exposure to the Chinese Famine and healthy lifestyle behavior for elderly hypertensive patients in China

“…Participants born before 1942 were categorized as the adult exposed group and served as the reference group for the study. Others were classified into the following groups based on their age at the time of the famine: infancy and toddler exposed group (born between 1956 to 1958), preschooler exposed group (born between 1953 to 1955), school-aged child exposed group (born between 1947 and 1952), and adolescent exposed group (born between 1942 and 1946) [16].…”