Abstract
Despite growing evidence supporting the role of protein consumption in promoting muscle health, the possible mediation by gut microbiota remains unclear. Here, we determined the association between the quantity of dietary protein and gut microbiome composition in community-dwelling older adults. We performed a cross-sectional analysis on 775 older men from the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) study with available dietary information and stool samples at visit 4 (2014-16). Protein intake extracted from a brief Food Frequency Questionnaire and adjusted to total energy intake using the residual method. Gut microbial taxa were determined by 16S (v4) sequencing (Greengenes references). 11,534 Operational Taxonomic Units were identified and assigned to 21 phyla with dominance of Firmicutes (45%) and Bacteroidetes (43%). We performed distribution-based analysis (α-diversity), distance-based Permutation Multivariate Analysis of Variance (β-diversity), and taxa abundance (by ANCOM-BC R-package) to determine associations between protein intake and gut microbiome. Mean energy-adjusted protein intake was 62.0±10.8 g/d [0.8±0.3 g/kgBW/d]. Participants with higher protein intake had higher Shannon and Chao1 α-diversity indices (P<0.05). For β-diversity analysis, participants with higher protein intake had a different center in weighted and unweighted UniFrac PCoA vs. those with lower intake (P<0.05) adjusted for age, race, clinical center, energy intake, weight, height, and medications. Tenericutes phylum and several genus-level OTUs, including Klebsiella, Tyzzerella, Christensenellaceae, Ruminococcaceae, Blautia, and Veillonella were differentially abundant between quartiles of protein intake (FDR corrected P<0.05). Our data support an association between dietary protein and gut microbiota diversity, a relationship that could potentially influence physical function and sarcopenia development.