Gut Microbiota and Health: Understanding the Role of Diet

Abstract

Microbiome now is considered as an organ within our system to regulate metabolism, cellular immune response and eventually maintain the health. Gut microbiota has been studied extensively in the recent past due to the possibility of high-resolution analysis by next-generation sequencing technology. As the gut microbiota, is essential for the host development and physiological function, a gut microbial community dominated by Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes and their relative abundance and dysbiosis influences obese conditions and various disease progression. The microbiota dysbiosis in the gut contributed mainly by diet as a carbon economy of the colon apart from genetic and environmental variations. Postgenomic era reveals the paradigm of the gut-brain axis and association of gut microbial metabolites such as short chain fatty acids (SCFA) and disease progression of inflammatory bowel disorder (IBD) and colon cancer. In addition, the landscape of gut microbiome is influenced by other factors such as pregnancy, smoking, alcohol consumption and stress. The functional consequence of gut microbial dysbiosis towards disease progression and understanding their mechanism in terms of the immune response through studies on rodent animal models also are discussed in this review.

How Diet and Physical Activity Modulate Gut Microbiota: Evidence, and Perspectives

“…Therefore, nutrient intake is important for our survival and well-being, but it is also crucial for modulating the symbiotic microbial communities living in the intestine, that is gut microbiota. Microbiota is composed of Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Cyanobacteria, and Fusobacteria, but Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes are the most abundant and their activity has been particularly studied [6].…”