Effects of short‐term endurance exercise on gut microbiota in elderly men

Abstract

Regular exercise reduces the risks for cardiovascular diseases. Although the gut microbiota has been associated with fitness level and cardiometabolic risk factors, the effects of exercise‐induced gut microbiota changes in elderly individuals are unclear. This study evaluated whether endurance exercise modulates the gut microbiota in elderly subjects, and whether these changes are associated with host cardiometabolic phenotypes. In a randomized crossover trial, 33 elderly Japanese men participated in a 5‐week endurance exercise program. 16S rRNA gene‐based metagenomic analyses revealed that the effect of endurance exercise on gut microbiota diversity was not greater than interindividual differences, whereas changes in α‐diversity indices during intervention were negatively correlated with changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, especially during exercise. Microbial composition analyses showed that the relative abundance of Clostridium difficile significantly decreased, whereas that of Oscillospira significantly increased during exercise as compared to the control period. The changes in these taxa were correlated with the changes in several cardiometabolic risk factors. The findings indicate that short‐term endurance exercise has little effect on gut microbiota in elderly individuals, and that the changes in gut microbiota were associated with cardiometabolic risk factors, such as systolic and diastolic blood pressure, providing preliminary insight into the associations between the gut microbiota and cardiometabolic phenotypes.

Physical activity regulates the intestinal microbiota composition

“…Exercise determined changes in microbial composition were correlated with the duration of physical activity. It was recently confirmed that short-term endurance exercise has little effect on gut microbiota composition and diversity in elderly men, but mentioned little changes in the microbiota which were associated with lower cardiometabolic risk factors (Taniguchi et al, 2018). The study suggests that the gut microbiota is influenced by high-intensity interval training and diet and might play a crucial role in modulating CV disease development (Juneau, Hayami, Gayda, Lacroix & Nigam 2014).…”

“…Recently, data demonstrated the association between physical exercise and gut microbiota diversity in the elderly (Jackson et al, 2016). Authors of many studies reported that gut microbiota composition is less different in some conditions, such as in hypertensive patients and in patients with obesity-associated inflammation and gastrointestinal diseases (Monda et al, 2017;Taniguchi et al, 2018). Exercise can modulate the gut microbiota diversity and could have positive effects on the pathogenesis of mentioned conditions.…”

Attributes of Physical Activity and Gut Microbiome in Adults: A Systematic Review

“…We assessed the methodological quality and risk of bias in the five included studies, using the PEDro scale to assess key components of the study design [19]. Four studies were found to have at least fair level quality with PEDro score ≥ 4 [20][21][22][23]; the remaining study was rated as poor, with a PEDro score ≤ 3 [24] (Supplemental ▶Table 2S).…”

“…Number of participants ranged from 12-74, and sample characteristics varied across studies. One study included male participants only [23], and two studies included only female participants [22,24]. The remaining two studies included participants of both sex.…”

“…Munukka et al focused on overweight women [22]. Taniguchi et al studied elderly male participants [23]. Allen et al investigated previously sedentary adults with varying BMI status [20] and lastly, Cronin et al interrogated sedentary adults (with no prerequisites regarding BMI status) [21].…”