{"doi":"10.1093/cdn/nzab026","title":"Long-term Diet Quality and Gut Microbiome Functionality: A Prospective, Shotgun Metagenomic Study among Urban Chinese Adults","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Diet is known to affect human gut microbiome composition; yet, how diet affects gut microbiome functionality remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: We compared the diversity and abundance/presence of fecal microbiome metabolic pathways among individuals according to their long-term diet quality. METHODS: In 2 longitudinal cohorts, we assessed participants' usual diets via repeated surveys during 1996-2011 and collected a stool sample in 2015-2018. Participants who maintained a healthy or unhealthy diet (i.e., stayed in the highest or lowest quintile of a healthy diet score throughout follow-up) were selected. Participants were excluded if they reported a history of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or hypertension; had diarrhea or constipation in the last 7 d; or used antibiotics in the last 6 mo before stool collection. Functional profiling of shotgun metagenomics was performed using HUMAnN2. Associations of dietary variables and 420 microbial metabolic pathways were evaluated via multivariable-adjusted linear or logistic regression models. RESULTS: < 0.01 [false discovery rate (FDR) <0.15], the healthy diet group showed enriched pathways for vitamin and carrier biosynthesis (e.g., tetrahydrofolate, acetyl-CoA, and l-methionine) and tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, and increased degradation (or reduced biosynthesis) of certain sugars [e.g., cytidine monophosphate (CMP)-legionaminate, deoxythymidine diphosphate (dTDP)-l-rhamnose, and sucrose], nucleotides, 4-aminobutanoate, methylglyoxal, sulfate, and aromatic compounds (e.g., catechol and toluene). Meanwhile, several food groups were associated with the CMP-legionaminate biosynthesis pathway at FDR <0.05. CONCLUSIONS: In a small longitudinal study of generally healthy, older Chinese adults, we found long-term healthy eating was associated with increased α-diversity of microbial gene families and metabolic pathways and altered symbiotic functions relevant to human nutrition and health.","journal":"Current Developments in Nutrition","year":2021,"id":171565,"datarank":0.4943755299006494,"base_score":3.295836866004329,"endowment":3.295836866004329,"self_citation_contribution":0.4943755299006494,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.4943755299006494,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":26,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8598,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":240063,"name":"Yaohua Yang","orcid":"0000-0002-3815-7172","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240075,"name":"Jirong Long","orcid":"0000-0002-7433-9766","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":299436,"name":"Wanghong Xu","orcid":"0000-0003-2045-2218","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":86849,"name":"Qiuyin Cai","orcid":"0000-0002-9384-5648","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":299437,"name":"Jie Wu","orcid":"0000-0003-3927-4765","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":38542,"name":"Hui Cai","orcid":"0000-0002-2388-1694","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39347,"name":"Wei Zheng","orcid":"0000-0003-1226-070X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240065,"name":"Xiao‐Ou Shu","orcid":"0000-0002-0711-8314","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":299434,"name":"Danxia Yu","orcid":"0000-0002-1710-9382","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":46,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:46:33.067299Z","pmid":"33937616","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}