New Research Reveals Coffee’s Distinct Impact on Gut Health

December 10, 2024 TruthUSA

Discover how coffee significantly influences gut bacteria levels, based on findings from a study involving nearly 77,200 participants.

Recent research indicates that coffee drinkers possess up to eight times more of a certain gut bacterium compared to those who do not drink coffee.

The international research, which observed the coffee consumption patterns of nearly 77,200 individuals across 25 countries, has revealed that drinking coffee creates a unique microbial fingerprint. Researchers were able to accurately identify coffee drinkers 95 percent of the time by analyzing their gut bacteria.

Impact of Coffee on Gut Microbiome

A 2021 study found that coffee had the most significant correlation with microbiome composition among more than 150 different foods, particularly affecting the levels of Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus in around 1,000 participants.

The latest study conducted by the CIBIO Department at the University of Trento in Italy, in collaboration with Harvard University, was published in Nature Microbiology in November, aiming to enhance our understanding of how coffee influences gut health.

For this purpose, researchers examined dietary and medical data from nearly 23,000 people in the United States and the UK, as well as publicly sourced data from around 54,200 individuals globally. They compared stool samples from both coffee drinkers and non-drinkers to analyze variations in gut bacteria composition.

The findings revealed a strong link between coffee consumption and levels of L. asaccharolyticus, with coffee drinkers showing approximately five to eight times higher levels of this bacterium compared to non-drinkers.

This pattern was consistently observed worldwide, indicating that regions known for coffee consumption, such as Luxembourg, Denmark, and Sweden, have higher levels of L. asaccharolyticus, whereas it is almost nonexistent in countries like China, Argentina, and India.

The results shed light on how specific foods interact with our microbiomes and their potential implications for health.

The research team demonstrated that individual microbiome profiles can accurately predict coffee consumption 95 percent of the time. Laboratory experiments confirmed that the growth rate of L. asaccharolyticus increased when cultured in an in vitro setting with coffee. Additional observations showed that individuals consuming high amounts of coffee had a greater abundance of this bacterium.

However, the implications of L. asaccharolyticus for human health remain unclear. Its presence in the gut microbiome is associated with elevated levels of hippurate, a marker of metabolic and gut health produced by gut microbes that metabolize polyphenols found in coffee.

“We do not yet have definitive evidence regarding whether Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus is beneficial or harmful,” stated Nicola Segata, a genetics professor and head of the Computational Metagenomics Laboratory at CIBIO, in an interview with The Epoch Times. He mentioned that the research team is performing further experiments to clarify this issue.

Prospects for Microbiome Research

The research group intends to broaden their investigation into the effects of other foods on gut microbiota while acknowledging the complexities of accurately measuring food intake.

The findings suggest a possibility of leveraging certain foods to boost the abundance or prevalence of beneficial gut microbes, according to Segata. “To accomplish this, we need to extend our research to numerous other foods and microbes, which is precisely what we are currently working on,” he expressed.

The researchers foresee a future where microbiome testing can facilitate personalized dietary recommendations based on the presence of specific bacteria linked to particular foods. This method holds the potential to help individuals improve their diets for better health by understanding the intricate connections between their dietary habits and microbiome composition.

“With a food like coffee, from which we can easily gather information—and which is either consumed regularly or not at all—the connections are very pronounced and distinct,” Segata concluded.

Source link