Energy balance
High host-driven digestibility (HDD) diets, such as ultra-processed foods, decouple host and microbial nutrient status by maximizing small intestinal absorption, which leads to host energy surplus and gut microbial nutrient limitation.
To optimize gut health and metabolic balance, prioritize foods with low host-driven digestibility (high fiber, resistant starch, whole foods). These foods escape small intestinal absorption, reaching the colon to feed beneficial microbes, which in turn produce short-chain fatty acids that support host health. Ultra-processed, high-digestibility foods absorb quickly, leading to host energy surplus and starving the gut microbiome.
a nutrient-rich diet from a host perspective is a nutrient-poor diet from a gut microbial perspective, and vice versa. Thus, to better appreciate how diets of variable digestibility impact host-microbial interactions, we must conceptually decouple host nutrient status from microbial nutrient status.
Why this rating
The paper synthesizes multiple human and rodent studies showing consistent phenotypic convergence.
Source
Decoupled Nutrient Status: a framework to disentangle host from microbial responses to diets that vary in digestibility
Emily M. Venable et al. · Frontiers in Food Science and Technology · 2024
DOI 10.3389/frfst.2024.1469470
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- High HDD diets shift gut microbial community composition from fiber-degrading taxa (e.g., Prevotella) to mucin-degrading taxa (e.g., Bacteroides, Akkermansia) due to nutrient limitation.Good
- Humans have evolved anatomical and physiological adaptations (elongated small intestine, reduced colon) that exacerbate the decoupling of host and microbial nutrient status compared to other primates.Moderate
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