Leading Japanese dairy company Morinaga Milk has announced the results of a new study that confirm how gut microbiota composition in healthy humans change with age.
Morinaga conducted the research in collaboration with Dr Ro Osawa of Kobe University. Together, they analysed and compared the gut microbiota of 367 healthy Japanese individuals ranging from newborn to 104 years old using next-generation sequencing. The results revealed a pattern of sequential changes in gut microbiota by age.
Dr Osawa explained: “Over the past decade, research conducted worldwide has revealed the crucial nature of gut microbiota to host health. However, the typical gut microbiota in healthy individuals has not been established.
“By analysing an enormous number of microbiota from healthy populations in every age group, our findings could enable future research to identify the healthy gut microbiota composition in each life stage.”
The research demonstrated sequential changes of gut microbiota from infants to centenarians. While many phyla rise, the phylum actinobacteria, including bifidobacteria – the predominant bacteria in infants – declines rapidly after weaning and decreases even further after the age of 60.
Sequential changes of gut microbiota from infants to centenarians.
When subjects with similar gut microbiota composition are grouped together, distinct groups are formed according to broad age groups.
The scientists also found that age-related differences in gut microbiota are greater than individual differences – though some adult subjects were classified into the ‘Elderly 1’ group because they harboured gut microbiota not typical for their age. This suggests that in some people the age of their gut microbiota may be greater than their chronological age.
Changes of bifidobacterium species proportions in the gut microflora of 441 healthy Japanese populations aged from zero to 104 years were also investigated.
B longum was widely detected in most individuals, from nursing infants to centenarians.
Its detection rate was the highest among all investigated species – 88.1% – highlighting its importance to human health.
The result also indicates that B breve was predominant in children under the age of three years old, whereas B catenulatum group and the B adolescentis group were predominant after weaning.
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