An experiment in mice confirms that those who received Stool transplants of elite athletes with high aerobic capacity – cyclists and soccer players – showed a better insulin sensitivity and an increase in muscle glycogen reserves, which suggests a possible metabolic advantage.
The details are published in Cell Reports, in an article led by scientists from different French centers, including the University of Rennes 2.
Although it is known that the intestinal microbiota – a lead of microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, arches, viruses and parasites) that resides in the body – acts as a bridge between the nutrients of the diet and the energy needs of the body, the interactions between this, energy metabolism and exercise capacity remain uncertain.
To advance this field, The researchers characterized the intestinal microbiota ecosystem in a cohort of healthy humans with normal weightvery heterogeneous aerobic exercise abilities – not athletes and very athletes – and a body composition and similar eating habits.
The objective, see if there were differences in the composition of the microbiota and in functionality.
Elite athletes, lower bacterial diversity
The team showed, among others, that The intestinal bacterial ecosystem of high performance athletes is atypical, characterized by lower diversity, density and bacterial functional wealthbut with higher levels of short chain fatty acids.
Upon transplants to mice, this microbiota improved insulin sensitivity and increased muscle glycogen reserves in animals – the fecal microbiota transplant is a procedure to repopulate the intestinal tract of a patient sick with healthy bacteria and there are dozens of clinical trials for different pathologies.
However, these results, although with “promising perspectives”, suggest that The remodeling of the intestinal microbiota of donors with high capacity for aerobic exercise alone is not enough to improve the resistance of the recipients.
It seems that more experiments are needed to determine if this type of transplant could improve performance when the receiver, whether human or mouse, simultaneously increases energy needs by regular practice of physical exercise, the authors write in their article.
Rosa del Campo, of the specialized group for the study of the human microbiota of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiologyhe points out that it is an interesting study.
It raises a hypothesis already explored in other works, if the intestinal microbiota can contribute to the success of elite athletes.
A long time ago, the lactate levels – produced by the muscle and that limit physical fatigue – and bacterial content; Even anti -doping control was raised -by doping with bacteria against muscle fatigue -explains to Science Media Center Spain, a platform of scientific resources for journalists.
The results now indicate that the aerobic effort capacity in the mice is conditioned by the microbiota and this is mainly due to glycogen consumption, good sugar control and production of short chain fatty acids, which are fats that only produce bacteria, says the researcher at the Ramón y Cajal hospital.
“The relationship between microbiota and physical condition has already been suspected for some time, but this is only applicable to elite athletes, not for the usual daily exercise of a non -athlete person”he adds from the countryside, who does not participate in the work.
However, like all microbiota studies, “we never know if the egg or chicken is before”: if elite athletes are like this because of their bacteria or bacteria accommodate the situation of physical effort.
“Another important limitation is that only a stool sample per person is studied and is like having a frame instead of an entire movie (…).”