Our team’s reading recommendation for this month goes to “Host and gut microbial tryptophan metabolism and type 2 diabetes: an integrative analysis of host genetics, diet, gut microbiome and circulating metabolites in cohort studies”[i] by Qibin Qi et al. from the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Yeshiva University Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and from the Department of Nutrition at Harvard University in Boston, a very interesting paper just published in “Gut“.
The objective of the study was to examine relationships of host and microbial tryptophan metabolites with incident type 2 diabetes, host genetics, diet and gut microbiota.
9180 participants were divided in 5 cohorts and the association between circulating levels of 11 tryptophan metabolites and:
- Gut microbiome
- Dietary intake
- Genome-wide variants
was analyzed.
Tryptophane, 4 metabolites from the kynurenine pathway and indolelactate were positively associated with Type 2 Diabetes risk,
whereas indolepropionate was inversely associated with Type 2 Diabetes risk.
The study allowed to identify an association between a host functional LCT (Lactase persistence) variant and serum levels of indolepropionate.
These findings suggests that there might be a host gene-diet interaction on gut Bifidobacterium.
Higher milk intake was associated with higher levels of gut Bifidobacterium and serum indolepropionate only among genetically lactase non-persistent individuals, resulting in a favorable profile of circulating tryptophan metabolites for Type 2 Diabetes.
Based on these results it will be of great interest to further investigate the host functional LCT variants in relation with the risk for Type 2 Diabetes to make wise and precise dietary recommendations.
We at 4bases are developing new solutions to support you in this extremely important mission.
[i] Qi Q, Li J, Yu B, Moon JY, Chai JC, Merino J, Hu J, Ruiz-Canela M, Rebholz C, Wang Z, Usyk M, Chen GC, Porneala BC, Wang W, Nguyen NQ, Feofanova EV, Grove ML, Wang TJ, Gerszten RE, Dupuis J, Salas-Salvadó J, Bao W, Perkins DL, Daviglus ML, Thyagarajan B, Cai J, Wang T, Manson JE, Martínez-González MA, Selvin E, Rexrode KM, Clish CB, Hu FB, Meigs JB, Knight R, Burk RD, Boerwinkle E, Kaplan RC. Host and gut microbial tryptophan metabolism and type 2 diabetes: an integrative analysis of host genetics, diet, gut microbiome and circulating metabolites in cohort studies. Gut. 2021 Jun 14:gutjnl-2021-324053. doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2021-324053. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34127525.