Human guts microbes varies geographically, new studies suggest

In a recent study, two researchers from the US universities reveals the variation
of microbes types among humans and its correlation to geographic position
where studied people live.
Several previous studies already shows there are significant differences between
microbes present in the gut flora of same-species individuals. However, why
these differences exists and what determines which microbes will be present
have remained a mystery.
Taichi Suzuki, from the University of California (Berkeley), and Michael Worobey,
from the University of Arizona (Tucson), explain that obese humans guts have a
higher proportion of Firmicutes than of Bacterioidetes. These are the two main
groups of bacteria found in a person intestine.
They also describe a very useful evolutionary concept called the Bergmanns
rule. According to this prnciple, humans have been increasing body weight to
survive in regions with colder climates along evolution. Then, individuals with
larger body mass would have more chances to reproduce and transmit this
physical feature to their descendants.
Based on this information, the American researchers expected to find a relatively
higher number of Firmicutes than Bacterioidetes in the gut of individuals from
regions with colder climates, such as those close to the poles.
In an attempt to prove this theory, they collected data from studies about
abundance of each kind of bacteria in the gut of 1200 healthy individual
distributed in 23 populations around the globe. Identification of bacterial group in
these studies were made using molecular biology techniques.
The results for these studies were surprisingly. We found a positive correlation
between Firmicutes and latitude and negative correlation between Bacterioidetes
and latitude, say the experts on the published article. In other words, they have
found that the higher the latitude the studied individual lives, the more
Firmicutes and the fewer Bacterioidetes will be found in microbial flora.
In order to verify whether other conditions were influencing the results found, the
experts also investigated differences in bacterial gut composition based in sex
and age of tested individuals as well as the techniques used to identify bacteria.
However, the pattern described above seemed to not to be significantly related
to these other conditions.
The researchers also compared data based on ethnicity to search for possible
influences caused by genetic characteristics of an individual on gut flora. They
did it by comparing data between African-Americans and Native Africans and
between European-Americans and Native Europeans. Again, they found little
relation between the results and genetic features.
These founds help understand which factors can be driving differences found in
intestine microbes populations between humans. In spite of this astonishing
discovery, both researchers states there is plenty of investigation to be made on
this subject.

The study has been published in scientific journal Biology Letters last January.