The gut microbiota metabolism of pomegranate or walnut ellagitannins yields two urolithin-metabotypes that correlate with cardiometabolic risk biomarkers: Comparison between normoweight, overweight-obesity and metabolic syndrome

Selma MV, González-Sarrías A, Salas-Salvadó J, Andrés-Lacueva C, Alasalvar C, Orem A, Tomás-Barberán FA, Espín JC · Clinical Nutrition

Confirms the metabotypes in people rather than in principle, and finds the distribution shifts with metabolic status: metabotype B, whose urolithins track worse lipids, was 20% of normal-weight, 31% of overweight-obese and 41% of metabolic-syndrome participants. The lipid correlations held only in the overweight-obese group, where isourolithin A and urolithin B tracked total and LDL cholesterol (p < 0.001); in metabolic syndrome, urolithin A correlated inversely with glucose and with nothing else.

Population

94 adults across three feeding studies: 20 of normal weight given walnuts, 49 overweight or obese given pomegranate extract, and 25 with metabolic syndrome given mixed nuts

Intervention

Dietary ellagitannins

Comparator

Comparison across metabotype and body-weight strata

Limitations

Cardiometabolic biomarkers, not joints, and metabotype is not randomly assigned: it travels with diet, weight and the rest of the microbiome. Three studies with different foods, pooled after the fact. Publicly funded; the extract and the nuts were donated by their makers with no role.