Abstract
Gut microbiota has been reported to contribute to reduced diet-induced obesity upon cold exposure. Furthermore, gut microbiome fermentation determines the efficacy of exercise for diabetes prevention and enhances exercise performance. However, there have been no systematic examinations of changes in gut microbiome composition in relation to exercise performed under low-temperature conditions. In this study, we investigated the effects of exercise performed under different conditions (room temperature, acute cold, intermittent cold, and sustained cold) in obese rats maintained on a high-fat diet at four time points during experimental trials (days 0, 1, 3, and 35), including observations on white fat browning, weight loss, cardiovascular effects, and changes in gut microbiota among treatment groups. We found that exercise under sustained cold conditions produced a remarkable shift in microbiota composition. Unexpectedly, exercise was found to reverse the alterations in gut microbiota alpha-diversity and the abundance of certain bacterial phyla observed in response to cold exposure (e.g., Proteobacteria decreased upon cold exposure but increased in response to exercise under cold conditions). Moreover, exercise under cold conditions (hereafter referred to “cold exercise”) promoted a considerably higher level of white fat browning and greater weight loss and protected against the negative cardiovascular effects of cold exposure. Correlation analysis revealed that cold exercise-related changes in gut microbial communities were significantly correlated with white fat browning and cardiovascular phenotypes. These results could reveal novel mechanisms whereby additional health benefits attributable to both cold and exercise are mediated via altered gut microbes differently compared with either of them alone.
Highlights
Cold exposure can protect against excess weight gain and improve health, effects that are believed to be mediated in part by gut microbes
We found that whereas sustained cold exposure alone led to a significant decrease in weight (P < 0.01), intermittent or acute cold had no significant effects
We found that the beige/white ratio was slightly higher in rats in the cold + exercise group than in the room temperature + exercise group (P = 0.058; Figure 1), no significant differences were detected with respect to beige and white fat per se
Summary
Cold exposure can protect against excess weight gain and improve health, effects that are believed to be mediated in part by gut microbes. Cold exposure has been shown to markedly reduce populations of the intestinal bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila and alter the composition of other bacterial species in mice (Chevalier et al, 2015). Recent studies in mice have indicated that reduced ambient temperatures can promote alterations in the gut microbiota, which in turn enhance the thermogenic capacity of adipose tissues, and the energy expenditure of hosts (Chevalier et al, 2015; Zietak et al, 2016). A study using mice (Allen et al, 2017) and two human studies (Barton et al, 2017; Allen et al, 2018) have demonstrated that endurance exercise does have effects on some microbial species and microbiome function, such as the production of shortchain fatty acids that are beneficial for health, after adjusting for dietary habits
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