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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2024 Jun 4;14(1):12838.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-63163-z.

Gut microbiome and inflammation among athletes in wheelchair in a crossover randomized pilot trial of probiotic and prebiotic interventions

Ezra Valido  1 , Simona Capossela  2 , Marija Glisic  2   3 , Anneke Hertig-Godeschalk  4 , Alessandro Bertolo  2   5 , Gerold Stucki  2   6 , Joelle Leonie Flueck #  4 , Jivko Stoyanov #  2   3
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Gut microbiome and inflammation among athletes in wheelchair in a crossover randomized pilot trial of probiotic and prebiotic interventions

Ezra Valido et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Disorders related to gut health are a significant cause of morbidity among athletes in wheelchair. This pilot feasibility trial aims to investigate whether probiotics compared to prebiotics can improve inflammatory status and gut microbiome composition in elite athletes in wheelchair. We conducted a 12-week, randomized, cross-over controlled trial involving 14 elite Swiss athletes in wheelchair. Participants were given a multispecies-multistrain probiotic or prebiotic (oat bran) daily for 4 weeks (Clinical trials.gov NCT04659408 09/12/2020). This was followed by a 4-week washout and then crossed over. Thirty inflammatory markers were assessed using bead-based multiplex immunoassays (LegendPlex) from serum samples. The gut microbiome was characterized via 16S rRNA sequencing of stool DNA samples. Statistical analyses were conducted using linear mixed-effect models (LMM). At baseline, most athletes (10/14) exhibited low levels of inflammation which associated with higher gut microbiome alpha diversity indices compared to those with high inflammation levels. The use of probiotic had higher decrease in 25 (83%) inflammatory markers measured compared to prebiotic use. Probiotic has the potential in lowering inflammation status and improving the gut microbiome diversity. The future trial should focus on having sufficient sample sizes, population with higher inflammation status, longer intervention exposure and use of differential abundance analysis.

Keywords: Inflammation; Inflammatory markers; Linear mixed-effect models; Metabolism; Microbiome; Prebiotics; Probiotics; Spinal cord injury.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The association between the inflammation status and the gut microbiome of Swiss athletes in wheelchair. The alpha diversity (left) is presented with lower diversity among wheelchair athletes with low inflammation status vs high inflammation. Only Chao1 was with significant difference. The beta diversity (right) is presented and there is higher dispersion as measured via PERMDISP (p-value 0.063) in the low inflammation status vs high inflammation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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