Karen Pendergrass, Standards Team

A 16-week randomized trial found that a calorie-restricted, legume-enriched diet outperformed calorie restriction alone in lowering LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol, and HbA1c in prediabetes, linked to gut microbiome shifts.

Metagenomic sequencing of 176 Parkinson's patients and 100 controls found reduced microbial connectivity and seven differentially abundant species, with Faecalibacterium prausnitzii reads driving over half of the disrupted functional pathways.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma patients had salivary microbiomes enriched in potentially pathogenic bacteria such as Streptococcus anginosus, Abiotrophia defectiva and Fusobacterium nucleatum, distinct from healthy controls. Cancer treatment further reduced diversity and shifted profiles, an effect still evident about four years later.

Fecal 16S sequencing showed the gut bacterial community differs between lung cancer patients and healthy volunteers, and specific gut genera correlated with serum inflammatory biomarkers, the first such link reported for lung cancer.

Gut microbiota composition differed by sex and stool consistency, but not by age or sex, in alpha-diversity among 277 healthy Japanese adults.

In mice with surgically induced endometriosis tracked over 21 days, 16S rRNA sequencing of feces found no significant change in gut bacterial composition, suggesting endometriosis does not cause pronounced dysbiosis during the acute phase of lesion formation.

In a mouse model of surgically induced endometriosis, broad-spectrum antibiotics shrank lesions about five-fold and reduced inflammation, and metronidazole alone reduced lesion volume, while fecal transfer from endometriosis mice restored growth, implicating gut bacteria in disease progression.

COVID-19 patients had reduced gut microbial diversity with more opportunistic pathogens compared with healthy people and seasonal flu patients. Fecal IL-18 was elevated, and highest in stool samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.

A multi-omics study found IBS is marked by broad shifts in gut microbiome composition and function across 16S sequencing, metatranscriptomics, and metabolomics.

In older Chinese adults, Alzheimer disease came with gut dysbiosis: Proteobacteria rose to 24 percent versus 12 percent in controls, while SCFA-producing genera declined. The APOE epsilon-4 allele was independently linked to higher Proteobacteria and Enterococcaceae, tying an AD risk gene to specific gut bacteria.

Among 14 patients with rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis, sputum bacterial diversity was markedly lower than in 14 healthy controls and did not recover after six months of intensive treatment. A five-genus signature separated patients from controls with an area under the curve of 0.94.

In a cohort of 1021 mother-infant pairs, maternal asthma during pregnancy was linked to sex-specific shifts in infant gut microbiota, with male infants showing reduced gut lactobacilli.

In 17 young adults with severe periodontitis, subgingival bacterial richness was higher in males, and the two sexes carried distinct plaque communities. Females were enriched for Fusobacteria, including Fusobacterium nucleatum, while males carried more Pseudomonadales.

In a mouse model of endometriosis, gut microbiota diversity and abundance fell, and fecal metabolites shifted in step. Chenodeoxycholic and ursodeoxycholic acids rose while alpha-linolenic acid and 12,13-EOTrE dropped, implicating altered bile acid and alpha-linolenic acid metabolism as candidate markers of the disease.

A three-species bacterial consortium that converts primary bile acids into anti-inflammatory secondary bile acids reduced DSS-induced colitis severity in mice.

In 30 stem cell transplant patients, dental plaque bacteria lost diversity during transplant. An Enterococcus bloom in dental biofilm strongly predicted acute graft-versus-host disease (HR 4.07) and severe disease (HR 6.82).

A 16S rRNA study found reduced clostridial cluster XIVa in sigmoid and cluster IX in right-sided colorectal cancer, changes not seen after colectomy.

Traditional group Kimjang kimchi was dominated by Leuconostoc and reached a more uniform, safer pH than kimchi made individually. Skin bacteria on makers' hands overlapped only slightly with the ferment, but hand Staphylococcus correlated with the lactic acid bacteria that took over early fermentation.

Adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder had gut microbiota enriched in Rikenellaceae (genus Alistipes), a family linked to inflammation, and depleted in Coprococcus, tied to dopamine metabolite synthesis, plus a shifted oropharyngeal balance, hinting the microbiome may contribute to OCD.

Children with high dental caries risk were 21 times more likely to develop blood stream infection after hematopoietic cell transplantation.

In pregnant mice, gut microbiota composition shifted the severity of malaria infection and pregnancy outcomes independent of host genetics.

A meta-analysis of ten 16S datasets finds consistent Parkinson's disease gut dysbiosis, enrichment of Lactobacillus, Akkermansia, and Bifidobacterium alongside depletion of short-chain fatty acid producers.

In an Indian cohort, vitiligo patients showed gut dysbiosis with a lower Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes ratio, depletion of butyrate-producing bacteria, and more mucin-degrading genes, and a cross-cohort classifier separated patients from controls with about 82 percent accuracy.

Periodontal disease in dogs shifted the oral microbiome toward Bacteroidetes dominance, higher Porphyromonas, and a predicted anaerobic, lipopolysaccharide-rich functional profile.