Super healthy elderly chinese have a 'young' microbiota

What is it about?

We sampled the bacteria in the gut (from stool) in over 1000 members of a super healthy population in China across the age ranges of 3 to over 100. Our goal was to identify what, if any changes in the makeup of the gut microbiota occurred in this population so that we could define "what is associated with health". We found three things. First, that the expected differences between the very young and everyone else were found in this population. Second, that the very healthy very elderly group (over 95 yo) was very similar to that of any very healthy person over the age of 30. Third, we found that the gut microbiota of 20yo people (in three distinct groups) was different from all other age groups.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

1) The study shows that losing diversity, or 'important' species from the bacterial population is not an inevitable part of healthy ageing. In fact, we found that the microbiota from the healthy aged had similar levels of almost all types of bacteria as was found in anyone over the age of 30. 2) The study shows that the gut microbiota of each population we study contains similarities and differences with other populations. The large deviation of 20 yo people from the norm in this population was verified by replication, but remains unexplained. 3) The study used a new method of analysis, adapted from the fields of economics and geology, that is much more robust and reproducible than traditional methods. This is a first complete case study of what is known as compositional data analysis applied in a large scale to the study of the microbiota.

Perspectives