Intestinal Blastocystis is linked to healthier diets and more favorable cardiometabolic outcomes in 56,989 individuals from 32 countries

Piperni, Elisa; Vallès Colomer, Mireia; Asnicar, Francesco

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.06.018

Intestinal Blastocystis is linked to healthier diets and more favorable cardiometabolic outcomes in 56,989 individuals from 32 countries

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Piperni E, Nguyen LH, Manghi P, Kim H, Pasolli E, Andreu-Sánchez S, et al. Intestinal Blastocystis is linked to healthier diets and more favorable cardiometabolic outcomes in 56,989 individuals from 32 countries. Cell. 2024 Aug 22;187(17):4554-4570.e18. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.06.018

Abstract

Diet impacts human health, influencing body adiposity and the risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases. The gut microbiome is a key player in the diet-health axis, but while its bacterial fraction is widely studied, the role of micro-eukaryotes, including Blastocystis, is underexplored. We performed a global-scale analysis on 56,989 metagenomes and showed that human Blastocystis exhibits distinct prevalence patterns linked to geography, lifestyle, and dietary habits. Blastocystis presence defined a specific bacterial signature and was positively associated with more favorable cardiometabolic profiles and negatively with obesity (p < 1e-16) and disorders linked to altered gut ecology (p < 1e-8). In a diet intervention study involving 1,124 individuals, improvements in dietary quality were linked to weight loss and increases in Blastocystis prevalence (p = 0.003) and abundance (p < 1e-7). Our findings suggest a potentially beneficial role for Blastocystis, which may help explain personalized host responses to diet and downstream disease etiopathogenesis.