Gut-microbe study races to capture what urban diets erase in urbanising India
A three-year study published in 'Gut Microbes' examines how urbanization and processed diets are altering the gut microbiome of Indians. Researchers compared rural and urban populations sharing genetic ancestry to isolate the impact of environment on health.
Why it matters
The findings provide critical insights into the rapid rise of metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity in developing nations undergoing dietary transitions.
Bacteria in the human gut, and not just genes, may help explain why urbanising Indians face rising rates of diabetes, obesity and hypertension. This is from a three-year study that has produced what its authors describe as the first reference database of the gut microbiome across South Asia.
The study, published in the peer-reviewed Gut Microbes , sampled 575 adults from 10 communities across India and Sri Lanka and profiled their gut bacteria through gene. Niraj Rai of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow, who led the work with Maanasa Raghavan of the University of Chicago, said India offered a rare natural experiment. “India is the only country where you can still find a rural versus urban” population that shares ancestry but lives in very different food environments, he said.
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