Microbiota and healthy ageing: observational and nutritional intervention studies. Microb Biotechnol doi: 10.1111/1751-7915.12048. [Epub ahead of print] Claesson

Hundred years ago Metchnikoff associated human health and particularly healthy ageing with a specific type of gut microbiota. Classical culture methods associated a decrease in bifidobacteria and an increase in enterobacteria with ageing. Modern molecular methods blurred this simple picture and documented a substantial inter-individual variability for the gut microbiome even when stratifying the elderly subjects according to health status. Nutri-tional interventions with resistant starch showed con-sistent gut microbiota changes across studies from different geographical areas and prebiotic supple-mentation induced a 10-fold increase in gut bifidobac-teria. However, in the ELDERMET study, microbiota changes do not precede, but follow the changes i