In a recent study published in the journal Cell , a team of researchers investigated the association between intestinal Blastocystis (a single-celled organism found in the human gut, linked to health outcomes with at least 28 subtypes (STs)), diet, and cardiometabolic health, highlighting its potential beneficial role in personalized responses to diet and disease outcomes. Study: Intestinal Blastocystis is linked to healthier diets and more favorable cardiometabolic outcomes in 56,989 individuals from 32 countries . Image Credit: Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock Decades of evidence link dietary intake with chronic disease development.
High-quality diets are generally endorsed to reduce long-term disease risk, though benefits vary individually. A single cohort study found that gut microbial communities with Blastocystis are associated with improved glucose responses, body adiposity, and other biomarkers. ST1, ST2, and ST3 are the most common in humans.
Further research with more extensive, diverse cohorts and detailed dietary data is needed to understand the relationship between gut Blastocystis, nutrition, and cardiometabolic health. This will help clarify how Blastocystis influences host health and its role in personalized nutrition and disease prevention. To characterize the presence of Blastocystis at the global level, the study identified and collected data from 61 publicly available cohorts with shotgun metagenomic samples of the human gut microbiome from curatedMetagenomicDa.