Data published in JCI Insight indicated that the probiotic cocktail could also prevent dysbiosis caused by a high fat (‘Western’) diet, reduce inflammation, and improve both metabolic and physical functions in older mice.
“Altogether, these findings suggest that such human-origin probiotic strains and cocktails could ameliorate age-related leaky gut and inflammation, hence opening up novel avenues to explore and exploit the clinical utilities of such therapeutic regimens,” wrote the researchers in JCI Insight.
Human trials to follow
Dr Hariom Yadav, Group Leader, Gut Microbiome and Metabolic Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine (Molecular Medicine), and Microbiology & Immunology at Wake Forest Medical Center, and corresponding author for the study, told NutraIngredients-USA that the team is continuing the work and is planning additional clinical studies.
The researchers do not reveal the exact cocktail used in the study, but Dr Hariom added that the research team is “also looking for commercial partners to produce it for human consumption scale and commercialize it, while we will be coming up with more clinical data”.
Study details
Dr Yadav and his co-workers explored if the probiotic cocktail isolated from healthy infant gut in aged mice consuming a high-fat diet, which is known to produce inflammation and leaky gut.
“Although its precise etiology is unknown, low-grade inflammation in older adults is commonly associated with increased intestinal epithelial permeability (leaky gut) and abnormal (dysbiotic) gut microbiota,” they explained.
Leaky gut is as it sounds: An undesirable situation when toxic bacterial components can pass from the gut lumen into the blood.
Consumption of the five Lactobacillus and five Enterococcus strains led to an increase in tight junctions in the intestine of the mice, which reduce leaky gut, which in turn reduced inflammation, said the researchers.
They also found that the probiotics increased bile salt hydrolase (BSH) activity, which resulted in greater abundance of taurine in the gut. Additional studies in C. elegans nematodes revealed that “taurine increased life span, reduced adiposity and leaky gut, and enhanced physical function”, said the researchers.
“We demonstrated that a human-origin probiotic therapy prevented [high fat diet]-induced metabolic dysfunctions — namely glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, hepatic steatosis, and fat tissue inflammation — in older mice,” wrote the researchers.
“Reduced physical function and increased inflammation are major risk factors of increased morbidity and mortality of obese older adults, and probiotic therapy reduced both of these risk factors.
“Our findings indicate that such probiotic therapies could be beneficial for preventing aging-related metabolic dysfunctions, physical decline, and inflammation, and they may promote healthy aging.”
Source: JCI Insight
2020; 5(9):e132055, doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.132055
“A human-origin probiotic cocktail ameliorates aging-related leaky gut and inflammation via modulating the microbiota/taurine/tight junction axis”
Authors: S. Ahmadi et al.