Interrelationships between Inflammatory Biomarkers, Fecal and Plasma Short Chain Fatty Acids

Abstract

Short chain fatty acids (SCFA) have been associated with improved glycemia and to reductions in inflammatory responses in cell and rodent models. Low grade inflammation has been associated with insulin resistance. We measured fecal and plasma SCFA and inflammatory biomarkers in response to a proprietary oligosaccharide intervention. 22 overweight and obese men and women participated in a three‐way crossover study that included 3 levels of oligosaccharide: 0, 15 and 30 g/d. for 3 weeks. During each treatment, a collection of 5 days' feces were combined and analyzed for SCFA. At the end of each treatment, a meal challenge protocol was employed in which participants consumed half their daily dose of oligosaccharide with breakfast followed by a standard lunch. We measured plasma acetate, propionate and butyrate in 12 blood draws over the course of a 9 hour test day and inflammatory cytokines at 3 time points, 0, 195 and 435 min following the breakfast test meal. All SCFA analyses were conducted by GC‐MS. Inflammatory cytokines were measured on an 8‐plex chemiluminescent MSD plate except for adiponectin and CRP which employed an Integra 400 bio‐analyzer. Breath hydrogen and methane were collected to characterize participants as either methane producers (MP) or non‐producers (NM). Adiponectin was positively associated with fecal SCFA (p<0.05). TNF‐α and IL‐10 were negatively associated with various plasma SCFA AUC segments (p<0.05). Neither CRP nor IL‐6 was associated with either fecal or plasma SCFA. Fecal SCFA concentrations did not correlate well with plasma SCFA AUCs. Fecal propionate and butyrate were lower in MP than NM. Breath methane was negatively associated with SCFA production in MP. Plasma and fecal SCFA may predict some inflammatory responses but differences in the time of collections and the span of collections may reflect different temporal relationships to cytokines.Support or Funding InformationFunding provided by USDA CRIS 2032‐51530‐022‐OOD and the West Coast Metabolomics Center (U24 DK097154)