Age-related changes in the gut microbiota and the core gut microbiome of healthy Thai humans.

The gut microbial diversity of Thai people was investigated between two large cohorts, adult and elderly subjects, from the middle region of Thailand; the cohorts were divided into different age groups of healthy adult 73 and elderly subjects 47. The diversities of the groups were characterized using a pyrosequencing technique with primers targeting the V6-V8 region of the 16S rRNA gene, and a significant decrease in the and ratio from 7.3 to 4.5 was observed with increased age The microbiota of the adult and elderly groups had a significantly higher abundance of the phylum , including the three species , and , and the phylum containing the four species , , and . showed no significant differences between the two groups. Eleven species belonging to , and were shared by at least 90% of all subjects and defined as core gut microbiota of healthy Thai, among which a high abundance of was particularly characterized in Thai elderly individuals. Multiple linear regression analysis of age, gender, BMI and diet consumption frequency showed the correlation of age with and . Rice consumption frequency showed a significant positive correlation with , while no correlation was found for other factors. Taken together, in the gut of Thai adults, decreased and increased with age, while rice consumption increased the abundance of . These link of age and food, especially rice carbohydrate, to gut microbiota and health could be ultimately proposed as the Thai feature.