Elite Athletes’ Gut Bacteria Give Rodent Runners a Boost. The chemical these bacteria produce appears to enhance athleticism.

AlphaCog

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The study began with an assessment of 15 runners and a comparison of bacterial strains present in their stool before and after they completed the Boston Marathon. The investigators identified a boost in the presence of species the bacterium Veillonella after the marathon, especially Veillonella atypica. They also found that these bacteria were more abundant in the marathoners as compared with 10 nonathletes. These bacteria use lactate and break it down into propionate.

Moving on to another group of athletes, ultramarathoners and Olympic trial rowers, the researchers got similar results: higher levels of Veillonella after an endurance competition. They also found that following the intense physical activity, stool samples from these athletes had higher levels of every bacterial gene involved in breaking down lactate to propionate.

Intrigued by their findings in people, study author George Church, a genetics professor at Harvard University, and his colleagues turned to mice to see what dosing with Veillonella or propionate would do to the animals’ treadmill performance. Oral Veillonella boosted rodent endurance on the treadmill, and rectal administration of propionate did so as well. In addition, the investigators established that lactate can cross from the blood into the gut, where Veillonella might act as a kind of lactate sponge.

The findings are intriguing and support the idea that such bacterial activity can affect exercise function, says Fergus Shanahan, a professor and chair of the department of medicine at University College Cork in Ireland, who was not involved in the work. But he cautions that among elite athletes, these responses likely appear late in the process of becoming superfit and are not necessarily something anyone would see with short-term physical activity.
 

Validus

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The study began with an assessment of 15 runners and a comparison of bacterial strains present in their stool before and after they completed the Boston Marathon. The investigators identified a boost in the presence of species the bacterium Veillonella after the marathon, especially Veillonella atypica. They also found that these bacteria were more abundant in the marathoners as compared with 10 nonathletes. These bacteria use lactate and break it down into propionate.

Moving on to another group of athletes, ultramarathoners and Olympic trial rowers, the researchers got similar results: higher levels of Veillonella after an endurance competition. They also found that following the intense physical activity, stool samples from these athletes had higher levels of every bacterial gene involved in breaking down lactate to propionate.

Intrigued by their findings in people, study author George Church, a genetics professor at Harvard University, and his colleagues turned to mice to see what dosing with Veillonella or propionate would do to the animals’ treadmill performance. Oral Veillonella boosted rodent endurance on the treadmill, and rectal administration of propionate did so as well. In addition, the investigators established that lactate can cross from the blood into the gut, where Veillonella might act as a kind of lactate sponge.

The findings are intriguing and support the idea that such bacterial activity can affect exercise function, says Fergus Shanahan, a professor and chair of the department of medicine at University College Cork in Ireland, who was not involved in the work. But he cautions that among elite athletes, these responses likely appear late in the process of becoming superfit and are not necessarily something anyone would see with short-term physical activity.
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
 

cjm

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Full study and abstract below.

I'll save my comments with the exception of my emphases for another post.

~

Meta-omics analysis of elite athletes identifies a performance-enhancing microbe that functions via lactate metabolism

"The human gut microbiome is linked to many states of human health and disease. The metabolic repertoire of the gut microbiome is vast, but the health implications of these bacterial pathways are poorly understood. In this study, we identify a link between members of the genus Veillonella and exercise performance. We observed an increase in Veillonella relative abundance in marathon runners postmarathon and isolated a strain of Veillonella atypica from stool samples. Inoculation of this strain into mice significantly increased exhaustive treadmill run time. Veillonella utilize lactate as their sole carbon source, which prompted us to perform a shotgun metagenomic analysis in a cohort of elite athletes, finding that every gene in a major pathway metabolizing lactate to propionate is at higher relative abundance postexercise. Using 13C3-labeled lactate in mice, we demonstrate that serum lactate crosses the epithelial barrier into the lumen of the gut. We also show that intrarectal instillation of propionate is sufficient to reproduce the increased treadmill run time performance observed with V. atypica gavage. Taken together, these studies reveal that V. atypica improves run time via its metabolic conversion of exercise-induced lactate into propionate, thereby identifying a natural, microbiome-encoded enzymatic process that enhances athletic performance."
 
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cs3000

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This is a wild one interesting stuff

In Vivo Ergogenic Properties of the Bifidobacterium longum OLP-01 Isolated from a Weightlifting Gold Medalist - PubMed

taking a bifido longum strain from a gold medal olympian and giving it to a mouse jacked up its exercise performance, increased glycogen storage and gave a big enhancement in time to exhaustion

(mannose or colostrum / casein in goats or cows milks helps it attach to gut lining. & PHGG partially hydrolyzed guar gum can increase it nicely)

- B. bifidum increases expression of COX-2, which leads to higher production of PGE2 in the ileum and protects against intestinal apoptosis associated with NEC

- Degradation of food-derived opioid peptides by bifidobacteria Degradation of food-derived opioid peptides by bifidobacteria - PubMed
(bifidobacteria helps digest milk & wheat properly)

- Improvement in Lactose Tolerance in Hypolactasic Subjects Consuming Ice Creams with High or Low Concentrations of Bifidobacterium bifidum 900791
- Immunoglobulin G from bovine milk primes intestinal epithelial cells for increased colonization of bifidobacteria Immunoglobulin G from bovine milk primes intestinal epithelial cells for increased colonization of bifidobacteria - AMB Express

- Fascinatingly, mucin metabolism as performed by B. bifidum could activate enhanced production of mucin, thus enhancing the depth of the mucus layer wrapping the mucosa and, thus, strengthening the epithelial barrier function Administration of B. bifidum increased expression of TLR-2, COX-2, and PGE2 and significantly reduced apoptosis in the intestinal epithelium of both in vivo and in vitro models.

^ [ I saw a study where the mucin layer doubled in thickness in photos from feeding PHGG which increases bifidobacteria ]
 

Peating Force

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That's what I came to think after using enzymes, better digestion led to more energy so I thought: "strong guys must have strong guts".
Confirmed if you think about the quantity of food they have to eat.
 
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