Intestinal Blastocystis is linked to healthier diets and more favorable cardiometabolic outcomes in 56,989 individuals from 32 countries.

Diet impacts human health, influencing body adiposity and the risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases. The gut microbiome is a key player in the diet-health axis, but while its bacterial fraction is widely studied, the role of micro-eukaryotes, including Blastocystis, is underexplored. We performed a global-scale analysis on 56,989 metagenomes and showed that human Blastocystis exhibits distinct prevalence patterns linked to geography, lifestyle, and dietary habits. Blastocystis presence defined a specific bacterial signature and was positively associated with more favorable cardiometabolic profiles and negatively with obesity (p < 1e-16) and disorders linked to altered gut ecology (p < 1e-8). In a diet intervention study involving 1,124 individuals, improvements in dietary quality were linked to weight loss and increases in Blastocystis prevalence (p = 0.003) and abundance (p < 1e-7). Our findings suggest a potentially beneficial role for Blastocystis, which may help explain personalized host responses to diet and downstream disease etiopathogenesis.
Competing Interests: Declaration of interests G.H., J.W., and T.D.S. are co-founders of ZOE Ltd. G.H., J.W., R.D., F.G., K.M.B., A.A., and E.R.L. are or have been employees of Zoe Ltd. N.S., F.A., S.E.B., and T.D.S. are consultants to ZOE Ltd. T.D.S., R.D., J.W., G.H., N.S., and S.E.B. receive options with ZOE Ltd. All other authors declare no competing interests. Zoe Ltd. holds the following patent applications on Blastocystis: US patent pending application 17/203,678; Europe patent pending application 21713392.5 and 24386003.8; and PCT (World) patent pending application PCT/EP2022/076241.
(Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)