Gut microbiota modulation with long-chain corn bran arabinoxylan in adults with overweight and obesity is linked to an individualized temporal increase in fecal propionate. Homo sapiens

This study showed that long-chain arabinoxylan modulates both microbiota composition and the output of health-relevant SCFAs, providing information for a more targeted application of this fiber. Variation in propionate production was linked to both compositional shifts and baseline composition, with PCs derived from shifts of the global microbial community showing the strongest associations. These findings constitute a proof-of-concept for the merit of an ecological framework that considers features of the wider gut microbial community for the prediction of metabolic outcomes of dietary fiber fermentation. This provides a basis to personalize the use of dietary fiber in a nutritional application and to stratify human populations by relevant gut microbiota features to account for the inconsistent health effects in human intervention studies.