Research
Mixed
The human gut microbiome contains a shared core of prevalent bacterial species and functions (the minimal gut metagenome) that are essential for gut ecosystem homeostasis, including the degradation of complex sugars and synthesis of short-chain fatty acids.
Your gut bacteria share core functions with others, specifically breaking down complex plant sugars into energy for your cells (SCFAs). You can support this shared machinery by eating diverse fibers (pectin, sorbitol, cellulose) that these microbes are evolved to process, regardless of your specific bacterial species mix.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
The minimal gut metagenome includes a considerable fraction of functions (~45%) that are present in <10% of the sequenced bacterial genomes... These otherwise rare functionalities that are found in each of the 124 individuals, may be necessary for the gut ecosystem.
Why this rating
Large-scale metagenomic sequencing (576.7 Gb) from 124 individuals provides robust statistical power for identifying prevalent genes.
Source
A human gut microbial gene catalogue established by metagenomic sequencing
Junjie Qin et al. · Nature · 2010
DOI 10.1038/nature08821
cohort · n=124Cited 11,607×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
Related findings · Mixed
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