Eating a tomato-rich diet can have benefits for the gut biome. The study was conducted on pigs and the promising results mean that scientists will be looking to recreate the experiment on humans soon. The study, published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum, found that piglets’ gut microorganisms converted into more positive and favourable profiles after just two weeks of consuming a tomato-rich diet.
Lead author of the study, and Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University, Jessica Cooperstone said, “It’s possible that tomatoes impact benefits through their modulation of the gut microbiome.”
She added, “Overall dietary patterns have been associated with differences in microbiome composition, but food-specific effects haven’t been studied much.”
The researchers took 20 newly weaned pigs. Half were given the standard diet while the other half were then fed a fine-tuned new diet. Within the new diet, 10 percent of the food contained freeze-dried powder, specifically made from tomatoes. Fibre, protein, fat and sugar were given in identical portions and values to all of them. A series of precautions were specially designed to ensure that the changes that occurred in the microbiome with the study diet can be considered attributed to the chemical compounds in the tomatoes.
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Using shotgun metagenomics, the research team sequenced all microbial DNA present in faecal matter from the pigs. The results showed two changes in the microbiomes of pigs- increased diversity of microbe species present in guts and the concentrations of two types of bacteria that were common in the mammal microbiome. It is still unclear how tomatoes impact the gut microbiome as the study was mainly made in pigs, whose gastrointestinal tract is more similar than rodents’ to the human GI system.
Cooperstone mentioned that to understand the mechanism of how tomatoes can affect the gut biome clearly, scientists will need to work long-term with humans. This will also help in understanding the complex interplay – how consuming these foods change the composition of microbes present.
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