Diet: Cause or Consequence of the Microbial Profile of Cholelithiasis Disease?

Isabel Gutiérrez-Díaz,Susana Delgado,Natalia Molinero,Ana Cabrera,José Ignacio Rodríguez,Abelardo Margolles,Sonia González

doi:10.3390/nu10091307

Abstract

Recent dietary habits and lifestyle could explain the shaping of the gut microbiota composition and, in consequence, the increasing prevalence of certain pathologies. However, little attention has been paid to the influence of diet on microbiotas, other than the gut microbiota. This is important in cholelithiasis, given that changes in the production of bile acids may affect gallbladder microbial communities. Our aim was to assess the association between regular dietary intake and gallbladder microbial composition. Fourteen adults with cholelithiasis and 14 controls, sex‒age-matched and without gastrointestinal pathology, were included. Diet was assessed through a food frequency questionnaire and quantification of gallbladder microbiota sequences by Illumina 16S rRNA gene-based analysis. The cholelithiasic patients showed greater intake of potatoes and lower consumption of vegetables, non-alcoholic drinks, and sauces, which resulted in a lower intake of energy, lipids, digestible polysaccharides, folate, calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, and some phenolic compounds. Regarding the altered bile microorganisms in cholelithiasic patients, dairy product intake was negatively associated with the proportions of Bacteroidaceae and Bacteroides, and several types of fiber, phenolics, and fatty acids were linked to the abundance of Bacteroidaceae, Chitinophagaceae, Propionibacteraceae, Bacteroides, and Escherichia‒Shigella. These results support a link between diet, biliary microbiota, and cholelithiasis.

Highlights

In the last few years, solid scientific evidence has emerged supporting the view that dietary patterns are intimately linked to the composition and activity of the millions of microbes that inhabit along the gastrointestinal tract [1,2,3,4]
While non-significant differences are shown for age, Body mass index (BMI), and sedentary lifestyle among the groups, lower levels of serum glucose and high-density lipoproteins (HDL), and higher concentrations of triglycerides were observed in these patients
Even though 57.2% of cholelithiasic patients reported an excellent or good appetite, most of them (64.3%) declared that they excluded some foodstuffs from their regular diet, with legumes, dairy products, red meat, and vegetables being the most commonly excluded

Summary

Introduction

In the last few years, solid scientific evidence has emerged supporting the view that dietary patterns are intimately linked to the composition and activity of the millions of microbes that inhabit along the gastrointestinal tract [1,2,3,4] This close relationship is the result of a co-evolutionary process over almost half a billion years, whereby the diets of our ancestors, rich in polysaccharides and antioxidants, forced evolution towards a microbiota dominated by saccharolytic bacteria capable of extracting additional energy from food, in addition to offering other benefits for the health of the host [2,5,6,7]. In the aetiology of cholelithiasis, one of the most common biliary disorders in adults from developed countries [9], diet has long been recognized as an important risk factor

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