Published in

Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE, 4(10), p. e0124599, 2015

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0124599

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Sex, Body Mass Index, and Dietary Fiber Intake Influence the Human Gut Microbiome

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Increasing evidence suggests that the composition of the human gut microbiome is important in the etiology of human diseases; however, the personal factors that influence the gut microbiome composition are poorly characterized. Animal models point to sex hormone-related differentials in microbiome composition. In this study, we investigated the relationship of sex, body mass index (BMI) and dietary fiber intake with the gut microbiome in 82 humans. We sequenced fecal 16S rRNA genes by 454 FLX technology, then clustered and classified the reads to microbial genomes using the QIIME pipeline. Relationships of sex, BMI, and fiber intake with overall gut microbiome composition and specific taxon abundances were assessed by permutational MANOVA and multivariate logistic regression, respectively. We found that sex was associated with the gut microbiome composition overall (p=0.001). The gut microbiome in women was characterized by a lower abundance of Bacteroidetes (p=0.03). BMI (>25 kg/m2 vs.