Exercise-Mediated Enrichment in the Gut Microbiota as a Novel Therapeutic Treatment?

Are you familiar with the concept of hormesis?

We can define it as a phenomenon complying with the rule of “low-dose stimulation and high-dose inhibition”. If it is true that the dose makes the poison, the same hormetic stressor can be either a booster for our health or a threat. The composition of the gut microbiome is largely influenced by external stress, such as types of exercise, diet and emotional stress. Following the hormetic principle, exercise-induced changes in the microbiome can improve athletic performance by interfeering with the host’s metabolism.

How?

1. In 2019 a study on marathon runners showed how post-exercise fecal samples had an increased abundance in Veillonella atypica, a Negativicutes, able to convert lactate into propionate. Inoculating mice with this bacteria, they significantly increased their exercise performance [1]. 

2. Professional cyclists in the study of Peterson, 2017 [2] displayed variations in the abundance of Methanobrevibacter smithii compared to amateur cyclists. It is an archea linked to methane, energy, and carbohydrate metabolism, thus, potentially, to exercise performance.

Exercise affects human health in different ways, protecting the integrity of barriers, promoting muscle repair and regeneration, maintaining local homeostasis, and benefiting recycling and turnover. In athletes, the gut microbiome shows a marked increase in species diversity, higher abundance and metabolism of SCFAs, significant enrichment in amino acids and anti-microbial peptides. Exercise-induced changes in the gut microbiota may thus alleviate symptoms associated with various diseases.

Any example?

• Cardiac Function: A study with mice receiving FMT from the exercised group showed significantly improved heart function compared to those receiving FMT from the sedentary group, with higher release of exercise-induced cardioprotective metabolites as 3-hydroxyphenylacetic acid (3-HPA) and 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4-HBA)[3].

• Obesity: In a 12-week free running wheel exercise intervention on obese mice fed on a high-fat diet, specific enrichments of Faecalibacterium prausnitzi, Clostridium spp., and Allobaculum spp., were detected in the feces of the exercise group [4]. In obese mice the duodenum/ileum barrier function was impaired, resulting in increased inflammatory cells and COX-2 espression.  However, exercised mice exhibited normal intestinal morphology with no inflammation. 

Investigating the relationships between exercise-related microbiome and the host will undoubtly provide valuable insights in the design of gut microbiome-associated disease’s therapeutics.

Link to the paper: https://lnkd.in/dEnuzDR9

References

[1] Scheiman, J., Luber, J. M., Chavkin, T. A., MacDonald, T., Tung, A., Pham, L. D., ... & Kostic, A. D. (2019). Meta-omics analysis of elite athletes identifies a performance-enhancing microbe that functions via lactate metabolism. Nature medicine, 25(7), 1104-1109. https://lnkd.in/dFdmTghe

[2] Petersen, L. M., Bautista, E. J., Nguyen, H., Hanson, B. M., Chen, L., Lek, S. H., ... & Weinstock, G. M. (2017). Community characteristics of the gut microbiomes of competitive cyclists. Microbiome, 5, 1-13. https://lnkd.in/d3YjFuyq

[3] Zhou, Q., Deng, J., Pan, X., Meng, D., Zhu, Y., Bai, Y., ... & Xiao, J. (2022). Gut microbiome mediates the protective effects of exercise after myocardial infarction. Microbiome, 10(1), 82. https://lnkd.in/dze53hZt

[4] Campbell, S. C., Wisniewski, P. J., Noji, M., McGuinness, L. R., Häggblom, M. M., Lightfoot, S. A., ... & Kerkhof, L. J. (2016). The effect of diet and exercise on intestinal integrity and microbial diversity in mice. PloS one, 11(3), e0150502. https://lnkd.in/dsj435Z3

[5] Meng, D., Ai, S., Spanos, M., Shi, X., Li, G., Cretoiu, D., ... & Xiao, J. (2023). Exercise and microbiome: From big data to therapy. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal. https://lnkd.in/dEnuzDR9