Research
Mixed
Lower fecal microbiome alpha diversity (Shannon diversity) is significantly associated with higher visceral fat mass and overall abdominal adiposity.
Maintaining a diverse gut microbiome is associated with lower visceral fat. While the paper does not prescribe a specific diet, the strong link between low diversity and high visceral fat suggests that dietary patterns supporting microbial diversity (typically high fiber, varied plant foods) may be beneficial for managing abdominal fat.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
We observed a significant negative association between Shannon diversity and all adiposity phenotypes... alpha diversity measures in our sample are not only negatively associated with obesity but are also significantly lower in individuals with greater abdominal adiposity and visceral fat.
Why this rating
Large sample size and consistent findings across multiple adiposity measures.
Source
Heritable components of the human fecal microbiome are associated with visceral fat
Michelle Beaumont et al. · Genome biology · 2016
DOI 10.1186/s13059-016-1052-7
cohort · n=3666Cited 245×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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