Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) in Diet and Skin in Relation to Stool Microbiota: The Rotterdam Study

Jinluan Chen; Djawad Radjabzadeh; Carolina Medina-Gomez; Trudy Voortman; Joyce B J van Meurs; M Arfan Ikram; André G Uitterlinden; Robert Kraaij; M Carola Zillikens

doi:10.3390/nu15112567

Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) in Diet and Skin in Relation to Stool Microbiota: The Rotterdam Study

Nutrients. 2023 May 30;15(11):2567. doi: 10.3390/nu15112567.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Doctor Molewaterplein 40, 3015 GD Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
² Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, 3015 GD Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Abstract

Background: Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are involved in age-related diseases, but the interaction of gut microbiota with dietary AGEs (dAGEs) and tissue AGEs in the population is unknown.

Objective: Our objective was to investigate the association of dietary and tissue AGEs with gut microbiota in the population-based Rotterdam Study, using skin AGEs as a marker for tissue accumulation and stool microbiota as a surrogate for gut microbiota.

Design: Dietary intake of three AGEs (dAGEs), namely carboxymethyl-lysine (CML), N-(5-hydro-5-methyl-4-imidazolon-2-yl)-ornithine (MGH1), and carboxyethyl-lysine (CEL), was quantified at baseline from food frequency questionnaires. Following up after a median of 5.7 years, skin AGEs were measured using skin autofluorescence (SAF), and stool microbiota samples were sequenced (16S rRNA) to measure microbial composition (including alpha-diversity, beta-dissimilarity, and taxonomic abundances) as well as predict microbial metabolic pathways. Associations of both dAGEs and SAF with microbial measures were investigated using multiple linear regression models in 1052 and 718 participants, respectively.

Results: dAGEs and SAF were not associated with either the alpha-diversity or beta-dissimilarity of the stool microbiota. After multiple-testing correction, dAGEs were not associated with any of the 188 genera tested, but were nominally inversely associated with the abundance of Barnesiella, Colidextribacter, Oscillospiraceae UCG-005, and Terrisporobacter, in addition to being positively associated with Coprococcus, Dorea, and Blautia. A higher abundance of Lactobacillus was associated with a higher SAF, along with several nominally significantly associated genera. dAGEs and SAF were nominally associated with several microbial pathways, but none were statistically significant after multiple-testing correction.

Conclusions: Our findings did not solidify a link between habitual dAGEs, skin AGEs, and overall stool microbiota composition. Nominally significant associations with several genera and functional pathways suggested a potential interaction between gut microbiota and AGE metabolism, but validation is required. Future studies are warranted, to investigate whether gut microbiota modifies the potential impact of dAGEs on health.

Keywords: advanced glycation end products; diet; gut; microbiota; skin; stool.

MeSH terms

Diet
Gastrointestinal Microbiome*
Glycation End Products, Advanced* / metabolism
Humans
Multivariate Analysis
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / genetics
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / metabolism
Skin / metabolism

Substances

Glycation End Products, Advanced
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S

Grants and funding

The Rotterdam Study is supported by Erasmus Medical Center and Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw), the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (RIDE), the Netherlands Genomics Initiative, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports, the European Commission (DG XII), and the Municipality of Rotterdam. Djawad Radjabzadeh was funded by an Erasmus MC mRACE grant “Profiling of the human gut microbiome”. Jinluan Chen was supported by the China Scholarship Council for PhD fellowship (No. 201606170110).