Specific dietary fibers steer toward distal colonic saccharolytic fermentation using the microbiota of individuals with overweight/obesity
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that increased distal short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production beneficially impacts metabolic health. However, indigestible carbohydrate availability is limited in the distal colon; consequently, microbes shift toward protein fermentation, often linked to adverse metabolic health effects. We aimed to identify specific fiber(s) that promote saccharolytic fermentation in the distal colon and thereby may (partially) inhibit proteolytic fermentation. METHODS: Potato-fiber, pectin, and inulin were studied individually and in combination against a high (predigested) protein background using an in vitro model of the colon (TIM-2) inoculated with pooled, standardized fecal microbiota from individuals with overweight/obesity. Microbiota composition and activity were assessed at different timepoints to simulate the travel throughout the colon (proximal: 0-8 h, distal: 8-24 h) and compared to a high protein (HP)_control, receiving only proteins. RESULTS: Fiber addition increased total SCFA production compared to HP_control (52.11 ± 1.49 vs 27.07 ± 0.26 mmol) whereas total branched-chain fatty acids (BCFA; a marker for protein fermentation) production only slightly decreased (3.31 ± 0.10 vs 4.18 ± 0.40 mmol). Combining potato-fiber and pectin led to the highest total and distal SCFA production and distal SCFA:BCFA. Fiber addition attenuated HP-induced increases in several bacterial taxa including Mogibacterium and Coprococcus, independent of fiber type. Additionally, time- and fiber-specific microbial signatures were identified: inulin increased Bifidobacterium (proximal) relative abundance and pectin and/or potato-fiber increased Prevotella 9 (distal) relative abundance. CONCLUSION: The most marked increase in distal colonic SCFA production was induced by combining potato-fiber and pectin. Further research should elucidate whether this switch toward saccharolytic fermentation translates into beneficial metabolic health effects in humans.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".