Nutrition
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Osteoporosis is increasingly prevalent, especially among postmenopausal women, both in China and worldwide. In previous work, soy-whey dual-protein (DP) intervention improved muscle status via regulation of gut microbiota. However, little information is available about the relationship between DP supplementation and osteoporosis. ⋯ Significant improvement was observed in bone mineral density, bone microstructure, and bone biomechanics with both DP and zoledronic acid (positive control) intervention. DP supplementation dramatically reduced the levels of serum osteocalcin and parathyroid hormone in ovariectomized rats. Ingestion of DP also resulted in a significant decrease in the number of bone marrow adipocytes and a marked increase in the number of osteoblasts, accompanied by elevated expression of the key regulator osteoprotegerin at both mRNA and protein levels. In the analysis of fecal metabolites and intestinal microbiota, the fat metabolism-related molecules chenodeoxycholate, 21-hydroxypregnenolone, and tetrahydrocorticosterone were markedly upregulated with DP treatment, whereas the content of fatty acids such as oleic acid were significantly downregulated. The abundance of three bacterial taxa (upregulated: Ruminococcaceae UCG_002; downregulated: anaerobic digester metagenome and Enterorhabdus) dramatically changed with DP intervention and was closely associated with fat metabolism-related metabolite content CONCLUSION: These results suggest that DP intervention could improve osteoporosis via regulation of bone marrow adipose tissue content and mesenchymal stem cell lineage differentiation. Furthermore, this effect might be mediated by the interaction between intestinal microbiota and metabolites.
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Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has a growing epidemiologic and economic burden. It is associated with Western diet (WD) patterns, and its pathogenesis involves metabolic disorders (obesity, dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia, and diabetes) and gut dysbiosis, features that are usually neglected or not reproduced by most animal models. Thus, we established a 6-mo WD-induced NAFLD mouse model associated with metabolic disorder, investigating its main features at the gut microbiome-liver-adipose tissue axis, also evaluating the correlations of gut dysbiosis to the other disease outcomes. ⋯ This mice model gathered suitable phenotypical alterations in gut-liver-adipose tissue axis that resembled NAFLD associated with metabolic disorders in humans and may be considered for preclinical investigation.