Research

Mixed

Higher personal economic status is associated with specific gut microbiota shifts (increased Bacteroides, decreased Prevotella) that do not necessarily correlate with increased metabolic syndrome risk, indicating that economic status alone does not predict dysbiosis.

Do not assume that moving to a higher economic bracket automatically worsens your gut health. This study shows that higher income was associated with a microbiome profile that was *not* more dysbiotic. Focus on maintaining physical activity to prevent MetS, as diet quality may actually improve with income.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
The values of this index were significantly higher in MetS subjects regardless of their economic status... The index values did not increase with increasing personal economic status, although the prevalence of MetS was significantly higher in people of higher economic status.
Yan He et al. · Microbiome · 2018

Why this rating

Large sample size, robust statistical modeling (MaAsLin), but cross-sectional nature limits causal inference regarding microbiome shifts.

Source

Linking gut microbiota, metabolic syndrome and economic status based on a population-level analysis

Yan He et al. · Microbiome · 2018

DOI 10.1186/s40168-018-0557-6

cross_sectional · n=6896Cited 188×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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