Their findings, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, examined the relationship between coffee intake and the gut microbiome through a multi-cohort, multi-omic analysis of U.S. and UK populations with detailed dietary information from over 22,800 participants.
“Our study provides insights into how the gut microbiome potentially mediates the chemistry—and thus health benefits—of coffee,” wrote a research team led by scientists from the University of Trento in Italy and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Up to 115 SGBs [microbiome species-level genome bins] responded positively to coffee intake, highlighting the impact that a single daily food item can have on the human gut microbiome.”
The work was supported by the large-scale ZOE PREDICT personalized nutrition trials and the adult twin registry TwinsUK. It follows a 2021 study of 150 foods, in which coffee showed the strongest link to gut microbiome composition—and one species in particular.
Distinguished microbiomes
The gut microbiomes of coffee drinkers were clearly distinguishable from those of non-drinkers, the study reported, as illustrated by the 115 species of bacteria positively associated with coffee intake.
Of these, “good” bacteria Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus showed the strongest association. It was 4.5 to 8 times more abundant in coffee drinkers than in non-drinkers—a link confirmed through a correlation of estimated per capita coffee intakes and L. asaccharolyticus prevalence in 25 countries with re-analysis of thousands of public metagenomes.
Further examination of presence of L. asaccharolyticus in cohorts involving 54,198 people across 211 cohorts in 43 countries—which considered age, health status, lifestyle and species—provided additional evidence associating the bacteria with availability of coffee in the diet.
“L. asaccharolyticus prevalence was above 60% in 52 out of 74 cohorts (70%), with a median prevalence of 75%, mostly representing adult populations in urbanized Western-lifestyle environments,” the researchers wrote. “In contrast, its prevalence in individuals belonging to rural societies with non-typically Western lifestyles (20 cohorts) was much lower (median prevalence 2.4%), and L. asaccharolyticus was also only rarely found in newborns and children.”
In vitro experiments in the lab also confirmed the stimulatory potential of coffee on the growth of L. asaccharolyticus, which the researchers said lays the groundwork for future investigations into the extent of this effect.
Metabolites with benefits
While coffee’s health benefits have primarily been linked to caffeine, the study found that the 10 bacteria with the strongest relationship to coffee were also strongly correlated with drinking decaffeinated coffee.
These strong caffeine-independent associations indicate that L. asaccharolyticus may be responding to activities along polyphenol metabolic pathways, the researchers suggested, noting that quinic acid, trigonelline and other uncharacterized metabolites are significantly enriched in coffee drinkers carrying L. asaccharolyticus.
People with L. asaccharolyticus also had higher levels of hippurate, a marker of metabolic health and gut microbiome diversity formed by the metabolism of polyphenols by gut bacteria.
As next steps, the researchers called for the study of the underlying mechanisms in vitro to identify whether the link between coffee’s phenolic metabolites and human health—including lowering all-cause mortality, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and cancer risk–is mediated by L. asaccharolyticus.
“The microbial mechanisms underlying the metabolism of coffee are a step towards mapping the role of specific foods on the gut microbiome, and similar patterns of microorganism–food interactions for other dietary elements should be sought with systematic epidemiologic and metagenomic investigations,” they wrote.
Source: Nature Microbiology
“Coffee consumption is associated with intestinal Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus abundance and prevalence across multiple cohorts”
doi: 10.1038/s41564-024-01858-9
Authors: Paolo Manghi et al.
