Abstract
BackgroundThe gut microbiota constitutes a dynamic microbial system constantly challenged by environmental conditions, including physical exercise. Limited human studies suggest that exercise could play a beneficial role for gut health, increasing microbial diversity, even if the effects of exercise on gut microbial microorganisms depends on its intensity and duration. This study aimed to investigate the effects of nine weeks of high-intensity interval exercise on gut microbiota composition in healthy young adults.MethodsThe gut microbiota composition of seventeen healthy male college students was analysed before and after nine weeks of high-intensity interval cycling training by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. PERMANOVA for repeated measures was used to test pre-post differences in the relative abundance of all taxonomic levels, and correlations between variations in microbial composition and physical and dietary features were also assessed.ResultsPhysical exercise induced changes in microbiota composition, at all taxonomic levels analysed (phyla: F [1, 32]=3.97, p=0.029; classes: F [1, 32]=3.39, p=0.033, orders: F [1, 32]=3.17, p=0.044, families: F [1, 32]=1.54, p=0.037, genera: F [1, 32]=1.46, p=0.015, species: F [1, 32]=1.38, p=0.007). Conversely, no differences were found between pre and post-training conditions for microbial community richness (Chao1: V=105, p=0.06) or diversity (Shannon index: V=62, p=0.52; Simpson index: V=59, p=0.43). Changes in the relative abundance of eighteen genera were correlated to changes of twenty environmental factors grouped in physical features, sport-related features, and dietary features.ConclusionsNine weeks of high-intensity exercise induced modifications in gut microbiota composition in healthy male college students, shifting the gut microbial population towards a healthier microbiome with benefit to human health in general.
Highlights
The gut microbiota constitutes a dynamic microbial system constantly challenged by environmental conditions, including physical exercise
Positive correlations were reported between bacterial diversity, butyrate-producing bacteria and cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max) [9], and higher turnover of carbohydrates and proteins, and concentrations of short-chain fatty acids in athletes compared to sedentary controls [10]
By sequencing the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene of Archaea and Bacteria from 34 faecal samples collected from 17 participants, we identified 11 phyla, 22 classes, 34 orders, 62 families and 123 genera
Summary
The gut microbiota constitutes a dynamic microbial system constantly challenged by environmental conditions, including physical exercise. Its composition is highly subjective, and it is associated with environmental and behavioural factors, such as age, diet [1], supplementation [5] and physical exercise [6] The latter was linked with positive changes in the gut microbiota diversity and community, both in animal and human studies [7, 8]. Authors controlled the dietary intake for three days before the stool collection to minimise the likely confound of differences in dietary intake on microbial composition; diet monitoring for a more extended period, before and during the training, was missing This point should be crucial in these intervention studies, as changes in microbiota composition could not be attributed exclusively to the exercise and to changes in the dietary intake, which was shown to be influenced by exercise itself [14]. Considering the above-presented studies, a systematic review recently published [19] have pointed out the need for longer duration and higher intensity training studies to analyse significant taxonomic changes in microbiota composition further
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