Changes in the Gut Microbiome Correlate with Aging and Renal Function

The gut microbiome changes with age. Pro-inflammatory microbial populations grow in size at the expense of populations that produce beneficial metabolites. As researchers produce increasingly large databases of the composition of the gut microbiome across ages and populations, they are also mapping a growing number of specific connections between microbial species and aspects of aging. Some of this work shows causation, but most human data can only show correlations between aspects of the gut microbiome and aspects of aging. In today's open access paper, the authors focused on finding links between the gut microbiome and the function of the kidney. Declining kidney function is clearly important in degenerative aging, affecting organs throughout the body. If changes in the gut microbiome can accelerate kidney aging, then this will contribute to aging in much of the rest of the body as well. Age-dependent changes in the gut microbiota and serum metabolome correlate with renal function and human aging Several cross-sectional studies have identified gut microbiota changes that occur with aging. Studies using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing have indicated an association between diet-driven microbiota alterations and health decline in aging individuals and highlighted the presence of a core microbiota of prevalent, symbiotic bacterial taxa dominated by the families Ruminococcaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Bacteroidaceae, with a progressive reduction in the abundance ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs