Many healthy gut microbe roads lead to C15:0

Healthy Aging

How C15:0 repairs our epithelial barrier & whole body health

There’s a lot of science talk these days around the gut. And this is not just because more people are experiencing suboptimal gastric and intestinal health (alas, this is happening). It’s also because we are increasingly understanding that our gut health really does influence our whole-body health – and the stronger the barrier of our gut, the healthier we are.

This week, we are covering the third study to show how, yet again, our favorite essential fatty acid (that’s you, C15:0) improves gut barrier function to keep us healthy. So, let’s dive in on this latest study published on October 28th in Nature Communications.

Inflammatory responses break down barriers.

While we’re all about breaking down barriers here at fatty15, when it comes to epithelial barriers, well, those are best left intact. Epithelial cells line every part of our body that interacts with the outside world. As such, they truly serve as a barrier that protects us – our circulation, our heart, our liver, our brain, all of us.

Chronic inflammatory responses can wreak havoc throughout our bodies, and when this inflammation occurs in our gut, the epithelial barriers of our stomach, duodenum, jejunum, intestine, etc. become compromised. And when that happens, invaders sneak through these leaky spaces to incite even more inflammatory responses throughout our body.

Enter, galactooligosaccharides and Limosilactobacillius reuteri. Wait, what are those?

Admittedly, we had to look this up ourselves.

• Galactooligosaccharides (GOS) are a type of carbohydrate found in foods (like dairy and beans). While they are not digestible, they are considered prebiotics that feed bacteria in our gut, like Limosilactobacillius reuteri.
• In turn, Limosilactobacillius reuteri (a probiotic) has been linked to better gut health.
• Together, GOS and L. reuteri have been shown to be an effective prebiotic-probiotic duo that lowers inflammatory responses in the gut and protects the gut barrier.

While great, it hasn’t really been clear how these two factors help. Thus, in their latest paper, Wu et al. sought to determine just how GOS + L. reuteri worked their magic.

GOS + L. reuteri enrich a third player, Bacteroides acidifaciens.

Oh great, another multisyllabic player. But stay with us. In their studies, Wu et al. showed that GOS + L. reuteri resulted in robust growth of a key gut microbe, called Bacteroides acidifaciens. And they found that increased B. acidifaciens resulted in… guess what? Yep, lower inflammatory responses and improved gut barriers.

You’re up, C15:0.

And when the researchers sought to understand how B. acidifaciens had its positive health effects, they found that – among all metabolites that this microbe made – one in particular led to the same suite of benefits. That’s right, C15:0 (aka pentadecanoic acid).

In their studies, they showed that C15:0 alone did the following:

• Protected the gut barrier in the face of damaging invaders.
• Increased production of proteins that keep the junctions between gut epithelial cells strong (think of these proteins as the cement between bricks).
• Repaired compromised epithelial cell barriers.
• Lowered at least five proinflammatory cytokines, resulting in a calmer and healthier environment.

In summary, Wu et al. showed that GOS + L. reuteri worked by increasing growth of B. acidifaciens, which produced C15:0, which explained all those great benefits.

Low C15:0 is associated with suboptimal gut health in people.

While the studies above were done in mice, to demonstrate their findings’ clinical relevance in humans, Wu et al. showed that people with suboptimal gut health (including evidence of overactive immune responses and leaky gut linings) had significantly lower C15:0 than healthy controls.