Nutritional Interventions to Shift the Gut Microbiome for Gut and Systemic Health

Dear Colleagues,

In this Special Issue of Nutrients, we wish to bring together high-quality papers focusing on the role of the microbiome in mediating the beneficial health effects of nutritional interventions. Such interventions may include 1) broad shifts in the basal diet or studies investigating different nutritional patterns (e.g., the Mediterranean diet or Western-type diet), 2) interventions with functional whole foods or food extracts, or 3) interventions with individual or combined bioactive food components or specific vitamins or minerals. 

For this Special Issue, we are particularly interested in the intersection of these diets or dietary components with the composition or activity of the gut microbiome and potential beneficial effects for health. Papers exploring this topic may focus on many aspects of gut and/or systemic health, including inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, colitis-associated colorectal cancer, gut leakiness, metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, systemic inflammation, and other immune disorders. 

Preclinical studies employing animal models are welcome, as are reports of clinical studies in humans. We also welcome different types of manuscript submissions, including original research articles and up-to-date critical review papers.

Investigations of the impact of various diets or bioactives on the gut microbiome have been of great interest over the past decade, although researchers have identified challenges in study design and data analyses that need careful attention as this field continues to mature. In this Special Issue, we are particularly interested in papers that explore the dynamic changes in the population and/or metabolic activity of gut microbes. Additionally, we encourage the submission of papers with robust experiment design and data analysis strategies that consider the particular complexities of studies exploring the intersection of diet, the microbiome, and gut/systemic health, such as microbial community sharing among co-housed animals. We also encourage studies that carefully consider the contribution of the basal/control diet (e.g., chow versus semi-purified diets with different fiber sources or amounts) in experiments involving interventions with functional foods or dietary bioactives. Lastly, we encourage papers that employ -omics approaches to characterize microbiota populations and/or their metabolites and request that underlying data be provided with the manuscript for full transparency and further exploration by the scientific community.

Dr. Abby D. Benninghoff
Assoc. Prof. Korry Hintze
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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