Exercise and associated dietary extremes impact on gut microbial diversity
2014/06/09 by Siobhan F. Clarke, Siobhan F Clarke, Eileen F. Murphy +28 · 1,428 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · #Athletes #Biology #Clostridium difficile and Clostridium perfringens research #Creatine kinase #Endocrinology #Environmental health #Gut flora #Gut microbiota and health #Immunology #Medicine #Muscle metabolism and nutrition #Physical therapy #Physiology #Population
paper · pdf · doi:10.1136/gutjnl-2013-306541
published in Gut 63(12), 1913-1920 (BMJ)
openalex publication_date 2014/06/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The commensal microbiota, host immunity and metabolism participate in a signalling network, with diet influencing each component of this triad. In addition to diet, many elements of a modern lifestyle influence the gut microbiota but the degree to which exercise affects this population is unclear. Therefore, we explored exercise and diet for their impact on the gut microbiota. DESIGN: Since extremes of exercise often accompany extremes of diet, we addressed the issue by studying professional athletes from an international rugby union squad. Two groups were included to control for physical size, age and gender. Compositional analysis of the microbiota was explored by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Each participant completed a detailed food frequency questionnaire. RESULTS: As expected, athletes and controls differed significantly with respect to plasma creatine kinase (a marker of extreme exercise), and inflammatory and metabolic markers. More importantly, athletes had a higher diversity of gut micro-organisms, representing 22 distinct phyla, which in turn positively correlated with protein consumption and creatine kinase. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide evidence for a beneficial impact of exercise on gut microbiota diversity but also indicate that the relationship is complex and is related to accompanying dietary extremes.
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