News and Research: B vitamins and the gut microbiome

Article: Intermediate role of gut microbiota in vitamin B nutrition and its influences on human health Frontiers in Nutrition, Dec 2022

Overview:

This review article examines how the gut microbiome produces B vitamins. It is a good overview of which ‘bugs’ are involved and where the processes occur.

But I found this article fascinating because it goes one step further and also includes information on intestinal absorption processes as well as the impact of dietary or supplemental B vitamins on the gut microbiome.

It is a two-way street: gut microbes produce B vitamins, but B vitamins from foods also impact the composition of the gut microbiome.

For example:

“Vitamin B1 is essential to the growth of microorganisms, therefore changing the form of gut microbiota. In the absence of thiamine, the population of thiamine acquisition mutant strain was rapidly decreased in vitro (40). An initial population of 90% had fallen to 0.1% by day 5. Another study found that the Eubacterium rectale A1-86, Roseburia intestinalis M50/1 were unable to grow in the absence of thiamine even though they have the genes encoding thiamin synthesis”