The combination of sport and sport-specific diet is associated with characteristics of gut microbiota: an observational study

Abstract

Background: Recently, gut microbiota have been studied extensively for health promotion, disease prevention, disease treatment, and exercise performance. It is recommended that athletes avoid dietary fiber and resistant starch to promote gastric emptying and reduce gastrointestinal distress during exercise, but this diet may reduce microbial diversity and compromise the health of the athlete's gut microbiota.

Objective: This study compared fecal microbiota characteristics using high-throughput sequencing among healthy sedentary men (as controls), bodybuilders, and distance runners, as well as the relationships between microbiota characteristics, body composition, and nutritional status.

Methods: Body composition was measured using DXA, and physical activity level was assessed using IPAQ. Dietary intake was analyzed with the computerized nutritional evaluation program. The DNA of fecal samples was extracted and it was sequenced for the analysis of gut microbial diversity through bioinformatics cloud platform.

Results: We showed that exercise type was associated with athlete diet patterns (bodybuilders: high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate, and low dietary fiber diet; distance runners: low carbohydrate and low dietary fiber diet). However, athlete type did not differ in regard to gut microbiota alpha and beta diversity. Athlete type was significantly associated with the relative abundance of gut microbiota at the genus and species level: Faecalibacterium, Sutterella, Clostridium, Haemophilus, and Eisenbergiella were the highest (p < 0.05) in bodybuilders, while Bifidobacterium and Parasutterella were the lowest (p < 0.05). At the species level, intestinal beneficial bacteria widely used as probiotics (Bifidobacterium adolescentis group, Bifidobacterium longum group, Lactobacillus sakei group) and those producing short chain fatty acids (Blautia wexlerae, Eubacterium hallii) were the lowest in bodybuilders and the highest in controls. In addition, aerobic or resistance exercise training with an unbalanced intake of macronutrients and low intake of dietary fiber led to similar diversity of gut microbiota. Specifically, daily protein intake was negatively correlated with operation taxonomic unit (r = - 0.53, p < 0.05), ACE (r = - 0.51, p < 0.05), and Shannon index (r = - 0.64, p < 0.01) in distance runners..

Conclusion: Results suggest that high-protein diets may have a negative impact on gut microbiota diversity for athletes, while athletes in resistance sports that carry out the high protein low carbohydrates diet demonstrate a decrease in short chain fatty acid-producing commensal bacteria.

Keywords: Body builder; Dietary fiber; Distance runner; Gut microbiota.

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All subjects provided written informed consent prior to beginning the study. This study was conducted after approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of Kyung Hee University.

Consent for publication

We have used our Institutional Consent Form and ready to submit under your request any time.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Figures

Fig. 1

Comparison of the percentage of energy from each macronutrient category. The percentages were calculated by dividing the available energy from the macronutrients by the total energy. a The percentage of the energy obtained from carbohydrates; b The percentage of the energy obtained from protein; c The percentage of the energy obtained from total fat. The red line represents acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges (AMDR). The AMDR for carbohydrates is 55 to 65%, for total fat is 15 to 30%, and for protein is 7 to 20% of the energy intake for Korean adults. Controls versus bodybuilders: +p < 0.05 or +++p < 0.001, bodybuilders versus distance runners: **p < 0.01 or ***p < 0.001

Fig. 2

Certain types of exercise training and athlete diet affected the relative abundance of some microorganisms. a Comparison of gut microbiota relative abundance at the genus level in the three groups. Relative abundance represent log of percentage as whole microbiota. For example, when the relative abundance of a particular genus is 1, it means 10% of whole microbiota, and when it is 0, it means 1% and when it is −1, it means 0.1%. Controls versus bodybuilders: +p < 0.05 or ++p < 0.01, bodybuilders versus distance runners: *p < 0.05 or **p < 0.01, distance runners versus controls: ¥p < 0.05 or ¥¥p < 0.01. b Total fat intake negatively correlated with relative abundance of Bifidobacterium in bodybuilders (Correlation coefficient: −0.52, p-value: 0.048). c Total fat intake positively correlated with relative abundance of Sutterella in bodybuilders (Correlation coefficient: 0.58, p-value: 0.023)

Fig. 3

There was no difference in the gut microbiota diversity between the controls, bodybuilders, and distance runners. a Comparison of observed species of controls, bodybuilders, and distance runners obtained from 30,000 sequences per sample. b Estimation of the abundance of unique operational taxonomic units (OTUs) using Chao1. Phylogenetic diversity was estimated using the average values for the Chao1 plot of the gut microbiota in the controls, bodybuilders, and distance runners. Data are based on 30,000 sequences per sample from the study subjects

Fig. 4

Protein intake negatively correlated with alpha diversity in distance runners. a Protein intake negatively correlated with OTUs (Correlation coefficient: − 0.53, p value: 0.04). b Protein intake negatively correlated with ACE (Correlation coefficient: − 0.51, p-value: 0.05). c Protein intake negatively correlated with Shannon index (Correlation coefficient: − 0.63, p-value: 0.012)

Fig. 5

The plot was generated using a generalized UniFrac principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) of fecal microbiota from 45 subjects. Generalized UniFrac PCoA analyzed genus rank level and included unclassified OTUs. Subject color coding: green, controls; blue, bodybuilders; and yellow, distance runners