Abstract
The increasing prevalence of obesity among children and adolescent’s wide is a public health problem, resulting from the interaction of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors. Obesity can lead to dysbiosis of the gut microbiota. This systematic review aims to gather scientific information available on the composition of gut microbiota in children/ adolescents with overweight/obesity. Research studies were identified through a scientific database (PubMed). The key words used were “Obese” OR “Overweight” AND “adolescent” OR “children” AND “microbiota”. Observational and intervention studies in children/adolescents having either overweight or obesity were included in this review, belonging to the last ten years – from December 2012 to October 2022. The initial search resulted in 409 references, 379 of them were excluded because the participants had major pathologies other than obesity or overweight. From the remaining articles, others were excluded due to not providing information on the number of participants, or not including data on microbiota composition. A total of 16 articles were selected: 12 observational studies and 4 intervention studies. Among the observational studies that compared overweight/obesity vs. normal weight or metabolically unhealthy obese vs. metabolically healthy obese children/adolescents, at least two studies found higher levels of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidales, Adlercreutzia, Bifidobacterium, Escherichia coli, and Clostridium. Moreover, lower abundances of Bacteroidetes, Verrucomicrobia, Bacteroides, and Akkermansia were observed. Regarding intervention studies consisting of supplementation of oligofructose- enriched inulin and a weight reduction program, higher proportions of Actinobacteria were observed after the intervention. Clostridia was also found in higher abundances after interventions that used a combined strength and endurance training program and a weight reduction program. The findings suggest that obesity decreased microbiota diversity and increases species associated with inflammation. The results are consistent with previous studies in adults. This information will be useful for designing dietary interventions to prevent or reverse dysbiosis in individuals with obesity. Keywords: Obese; Overweight; Adolescents; Children; Microbiota; Intervention studies; Observational studies
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