Over-feeding the gut microbiome: A scoping review on health implications and therapeutic perspectives.
Study Goal
The researchers aimed to summarize current knowledge on how the gut microbiota affects host metabolism, particularly in obesity, and discuss microbiome-based intervention strategies.
Results Summary
The abstract highlights that traditional interventions like prebiotics and probiotics show moderate efficacy, while next-generation probiotics, engineered microbiomes, and fecal microbiota transplantation show promise for obesity and related disorders.
Population
Not specified (general focus on obesity and related disorders).
Effective Dosage
Not specified
Duration
Not specified
Interactions
None mentioned
| Intervention | Direction | Endpoint | Population | Dosage | Impact | Claim # |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
diet modulation | decrease | obesity and associated comorbidities | - | - | are traditionally based on | #1 |
supplementation of prebiotics, probiotics and synbiotics | decrease | obesity and associated comorbidities | - | - | are traditionally based on | #2 |
diet modulation and the supplementation of prebiotics, probiotics and synbiotics | no change | gut microbial ecosystem | - | only moderate ability | have shown only moderate ability to induce sustained changes | #3 |
administration of next-generation probiotics and engineered microbiomes | neutral | - | - | promising results | has shown promising results | #4 |
fecal microbiota transplantation from healthy donors | decrease | dysbiotic ecosystem | - | - | replacement of the dysbiotic ecosystem | #5 |
introduction of synthetic communities specifically designed to achieve the desired therapeutic outcome | decrease | dysbiotic ecosystem | - | - | replacement of the dysbiotic ecosystem | #6 |
The human gut microbiome has gained increasing attention over the past two decades. Several findings have shown that this complex and dynamic microbial ecosystem can contribute to the maintenance of host health or, when subject to imbalances, to the pathogenesis of various enteric and non-enteric diseases. This scoping review summarizes the current knowledge on how the gut microbiota and microbially-derived compounds affect host metabolism, especially in the context of obesity and related disorders. Examples of microbiome-based targeted intervention strategies that aim to restore and maintain an eubiotic layout are then discussed. Adjuvant therapeutic interventions to alleviate obesity and associated comorbidities are traditionally based on diet modulation and the supplementation of prebiotics, probiotics and synbiotics. However, these approaches have shown only moderate ability to induce sustained changes in the gut microbial ecosystem, making the development of innovative and tailored microbiome-based intervention strategies of utmost importance in clinical practice. In this regard, the administration of next-generation probiotics and engineered microbiomes has shown promising results, together with more radical intervention strategies based on the replacement of the dysbiotic ecosystem by means of fecal microbiota transplantation from healthy donors or with the introduction of synthetic communities specifically designed to achieve the desired therapeutic outcome. Finally, we provide a perspective for future translational investigations through the implementation of bioinformatics approaches, including machine and deep learning, to predict health risks and therapeutic outcomes.