(Chaoyun Chen, Pengshuo Yang, Chaofang Zhong) On December 8th, a joint research group of Huazhong University of Science and Technology published a research paper focus on the “Stratification of Athletes' gut Microbiota: the multifaceted hubs associated with dietary factors, physical characteristics and performance in microbiology” on "Gut Microbes".
In recent years, people have begun to pay attention to the effects of exercise on body health. Exercise has a growing list of health benefits, including limiting age-related cognitive impairment, preventing colon cancer, and treating diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome and depression. Intestinal microbial community, as the "second organ" of the human gut, its immune and metabolic interactions between intestinal microbial communities and diets are related to the pathogenesis of these diseases.
To explore the relationship between gut microbes and body health influenced by exercis, the research group jointly led by Professor Qunwei Lu, Professor Kang Ning and Professor Song Wang from Wuhan Institute of Physical Education specifically studied the dynamic changes of gut microbes of 19 professional rowers on the timeline, and made a systematic analysis of their athletic performance.Gut microbial communities of athletes differ from that of sedentary persons in both diversity and the presence of certain taxa. However, it is unclear to what degree elite athletes and non-elite athletes harbor different gut microbial community patterns and if we can effectively monitor the potential of athletes based on microbiota. A team of professional female rowing athletes in China was recruited and 306 fecal samples were collected from 19 individuals, which were separated into three cohorts: adult elite athlete’s (AE), youth elite athlete’s (YE), and youth non-elite athlete’s (YN). In the subsequent analysis of microbial community structure, it was found that these rowers could be divided into three intestinal types according to the intestinal microbial community composition (as shown in Figure a below), respectively Enterotype1 dominated by the relative abundance of Prevotella, Enterotype2 dominated by the relative abundance of Bacteroides, and Enterotype3 dominated by the relative abundance of Ruminococaceae. The microbial community composition of the three intestinal types is also very different. As shown in Figure b below, the difference analysis shows a good degree of differentiation, indicating that the intestinal microorganisms of the three intestinal types have different effects on the body.The analysis also found that adult professional elite rowing athletes (AE) of gut microbes are more inclined to intestinal type Enterotype1 (72.36%), intestinal type professional young elite rowing athletes (YE) is also Enterotype1 (61.9%), and the young professional elite rowing athletes (YN) in intestinal type is more inclined to Enterotype3, intestinal type Enterotype1, Enterotype2, Enterotype3, respectively is 27.27%, 22.22%,and 50.21% (see figure b below). Existing studies have shown that human intestinal Prevotella and insulin resistance, positively correlated diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and high blood pressure, and movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease and autism showed a negative correlation, and Prevotella of the genus abundance increase associated with amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism pathways, including branched chain amino acid metabolism.Therefore, this work indicates that athletes' health level and competitive status are closely related to the intestinal microbial community, and athletes with Enterotype1 are more likely to achieve good performance.For ordinary non-athletes, it is not only a necessary process but also a scientific and reasonable process to adjust the status of their intestinal microbial community and body health through diet and exercise.
Huazhong University of Science and Technology is the first institute contributing for this paper. Maozhen Han from College of Life Science and Technology, HUST (now enrolled in Anhui Medical University) and Kun Yang from Wuhan Institute of Physical Education were the co-first authors. Professor Qunwei Lu and Professor Kang Ning from College of Life Science and Technology, HUST and Professor Wang Song from Wuhan University of Physical Education were the co-corresponding authors.
The paper link：
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2020.1842991
