Dairy and grain diets drive richer gut bacteria in Indian tribal groups
Ebel ER, Kulkarni AS, Mongad DS, Olm MR, Devi SI
Traditional Diet
The cereals and grains a community has cultivated and eaten for generations leave a biological fingerprint inside the people who eat them, encoded in the bacteria that evolve to break those grains down.
Scientists collected stool samples from people in eight tribal communities across India and mapped what they ate alongside the bacteria living in their guts. Communities eating dairy products and a wide variety of grains had far more diverse gut bacteria than others, including a type called Bifidobacterium that was nearly absent elsewhere. Those bacteria appear to have evolved specific tools for digesting grain and dairy compounds, suggesting that centuries of eating particular crops shapes the microbes living inside the people who grow them.
Key Findings
Four Trans-Himalayan communities with dairy- and cereal-rich diets had elevated gut bacterial diversity driven by abundant Bifidobacterium, largely absent from other populations
Segatella copri (formerly Prevotella copri) dominated gut microbiomes across all eight communities at 25-47% relative abundance
Bifidobacterium adolescentis strains in dairy-consuming groups were genetically distinct from industrialized strains worldwide, carrying digestive enzymes consistent with long-term selection by grain and dairy consumption
chevron_right Technical Summary
Tribal communities in India that regularly eat dairy and diverse cereals have richer, more varied gut microbiomes than those who don't, with certain bacteria evolving specifically to digest grain and dairy compounds. Some community members show signs that globalization is already shifting their gut communities toward patterns seen in industrialized populations.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Gut microbiomes of tribal communities in India vary with dairy and grain consumption.
Highly diverse gut microbiomes of non-industrialized populations share similarities with ancestral states of symbiosis and are linked to low rates of chronic inflammatory diseases. Yet there is sti...
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