Vitamins for the Gut Microbiome

Wilbert Sybesma, Thanh-Van Pham, Ateequr Rehman, and Robert Steinert

Human Nutrition and Health, DSM Nutritional Products, Basel, Switzerland.

Intestinal microbial communities play a pivotal role in maintaining host health, and its dysbiosis has been linked to a myriad of intestinal and extra-intestinal diseases. Biotic approaches such as pre-, pro-, syn-, or post-biotic have been used extensively to restore microbiota and to combat host diseases. Here we propose a novel approach to modulate gut microbiota via vitamins directly delivered to the colon, harboring dense microbial populations. In addition to diet, gut microbes are also a source of vitamins in the gut lumen, where these vitamins could directly cross-feed other microbes or interact with the host colonic cells. 

We will present the approach to deliver vitamins to the colon and the importance of vitamins for gut microbes. In addition, we will refer to altered microbial vitamin production in health conditions such as Crohn's disease and type-2 diabetes. Results from our in-vitro and human studies suggest that individual vitamins, such as B2, B3, B5, B6, C, and folic acid, can enhance beneficial microbes (e.g., Akkermansia, Bifidobacteria, Faecalibactrium), stimulate production of short-chain fatty acids and increase microbial diversity. In this presentation we will also elaborate on what is known about safety aspects related to colon target delivery of vitamins and the reduction of the growth of common intestinal pathogens. 

Altogether, colon delivered vitamins clearly have the potential to modulate microbial communities with the aim to maintain a healthy intestinal physiology.  From that perspective, we conclude that it is worth to further invest in research and applications that aim to evaluate in more detail the impact of colon delivered vitamins on microbiome associated health conditions.