食用低纤维、高糖的“西方”饮食的儿童的消化道内细菌可能与食用富含纤维的饮食的儿童不同，这有可能增加西方儿童的肥胖和过敏疾病的风险。Paolo Lionetti及其同事比较了来自非洲农村村庄和生活在意大利佛罗伦萨的儿童的消化道细菌，结果发现非洲儿童的与成年肥胖有关的微生物比例更低，而且拥有的已知可以预防炎症的脂肪酸更丰富。非洲儿童的饮食可能类似于农业诞生之后不久的人类饮食，主要由谷物、豆类和蔬菜组成，而意大利儿童食用更多的肉、脂肪和糖。
这组作者说，只有那些仍然接受母乳哺乳的儿童的细菌组成类似于来自其他地理群体的儿童，这表明饮食可能比其他因素（如民族、卫生设施、地理与气候）更占据支配地位。在人类消化道内生活的数以万亿计的微生物被认为是帮助消化食物、预防病原体并限制炎症的关键“器官”。这组作者提出，工业化国家的常见饮食可能减少微生物的丰富性，这很可能与过去半个世纪的过敏症和炎症疾病的增加有关。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原文出处：
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1005963107
Impact of diet in shaping gut microbiota revealed by a comparative study in children from Europe and rural Africa
Carlotta De Filippoa, Duccio Cavalieria, Monica Di Paolab, Matteo Ramazzottic, Jean Baptiste Poulletd, Sebastien Massartd, Silvia Collinib, Giuseppe Pieraccinie, and Paolo Lionettib,1
a Department of Preclinical and Clinical Pharmacology, University of Florence, 50139 Firenze, Italy;
b Department of Pediatrics, Meyer Children Hospital, University of Florence, 50139 Firenze, Italy;
c Department of Biochemical Sciences, University of Florence, 50134 Firenze, Italy;
d DNA Vision Agrifood S.A., B-4000 Liège, Belgium; and
e Centro Interdipartimentale di Spettrometria di Massa, University of Florence, 50139 Firenze, Italy
Gut microbial composition depends on different dietary habits just as health depends on microbial metabolism, but the association of microbiota with different diets in human populations has not yet been shown. In this work, we compared the fecal microbiota of European children (EU) and that of children from a rural African village of Burkina Faso (BF), where the diet, high in fiber content, is similar to that of early human settlements at the time of the birth of agriculture. By using high-throughput 16S rDNA sequencing and biochemical analyses, we found significant differences in gut microbiota between the two groups. BF children showed a significant enrichment in Bacteroidetes and depletion in Firmicutes (P < 0.001), with a unique abundance of bacteria from the genus Prevotella and Xylanibacter, known to contain a set of bacterial genes for cellulose and xylan hydrolysis, completely lacking in the EU children. In addition, we found significantly more short-chain fatty acids (P < 0.001) in BF than in EU children. Also, Enterobacteriaceae (Shigella and Escherichia) were significantly underrepresented in BF than in EU children (P < 0.05). We hypothesize that gut microbiota coevolved with the polysaccharide-rich diet of BF individuals, allowing them to maximize energy intake from fibers while also protecting them from inflammations and noninfectious colonic diseases. This study investigates and compares human intestinal microbiota from children characterized by a modern western diet and a rural diet, indicating the importance of preserving this treasure of microbial diversity from ancient rural communities worldwide.
