The link between gut microbiome and ageing and longevity is blooming fascinating. Diversity seemed to be the big theme of 2023. And diversity can come from eating a diverse range our favourite foods – prebiotic containing foods!

Here are two research highlights from 2023.

Ageing and gut bacteria

Findings published in the journal of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, to be followed up in early 2024, have found that the diversity of microbes in the gut may not only influence our physical fitness but also affect how fast we age.

A team from the Hungarian University of Sports Science in Budapest found that inflammatory bacteria are actually accelerating the ageing process. They also found, in athletes, that a higher presence of anti-inflammatory bacteria was associated with improved indicators of fitness as well as biological age.

The diversity of gut microbiome also seems to play a key role. Hopefully they’ll expand on this in their 2024 research publication.

Nature journal, Harvard Helath, New Scientist, the US National Institution of Ageing, New York Times, Cambridge University Press and many others covered this topic last year and we’re sure it’ll continue to be a hot topic in 2024.

Watch this space!

Longevity and gut bacteria

This is from a Press Release we saw last year.  The team looked at the gut microbiome of 176 healthy Japanese Centenarians. Japan being well-known for its healthy eldery population. As of September 1, 2023, there were 92,139 centenarians in Japan, an increase of 1,613 from the previous year!

Back to the press release. We hope you enjoy this extract.

Some people turn 100 years old all by themselves. Why is that?

Researchers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen have set out to find the answer.

Studying 176 healthy Japanese centenarians, the researchers learned that the combination of intestinal bacteria and bacterial viruses of these people is quite unique.

“We found great biological diversity in both bacteria and bacterial viruses in the centenarians. High microbial diversity is usually associated with a healthy gut microbiome. And we expect people with a healthy gut microbiome to be better protected against ageing-related diseases,” says Dr. Joachim Johansen, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen’s Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research in Denmark, first author of the study, in a press release.

And if the researchers are able to understand the connection between viruses and bacteria in the Japanese centenarians, they may be able to tell what the optimal balance of viruses and bacteria looks like.

Again, watch this space!