Host variables confound gut microbiota studies of human disease.

ABSTRACT: Low concordance between studies that examine the role of microbiota in human diseases is a pervasive challenge that limits the capacity to identify causal relationships between host-associated microorganisms and pathology. The risk of obtaining false positives is exacerbated by wide interindividual heterogeneity in microbiota composition¹, probably due to population-wide differences in human lifestyle and physiological variables² that exert differential effects on the microbiota. Here we infer the greatest, generalized sources of heterogeneity in human gut microbiota profiles and also identify human lifestyle and physiological characteristics that, if not evenly matched between cases and controls, confound microbiota analyses to produce spurious microbial associations

SUBMITTER: Vujkovic-Cvijin I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7677204 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature