Impact of smoking cessation, coffee and bread consumption on the intestinal microbial composition among Saudis: A cross-sectional study
Authors: Ghada Ajabnoor
Turki Al Amri
Suhad Bahijri
Raoult Didier
Steve Harakeh
Suha A Farraj
Esam I Azhar
Emmanouil Angelakis
Timokratis Karamitros
Ahmed A Mirza
Ahmed Al-Hejin
Sulaiman M Alfadul
Dipankar Bachar
Abdalla Ahmed
Journal: PLoS ONE (2020)
Discipline: Multidisciplinary
Keywords: gut microbiota; dietary practices; lifestyle habits; Saudis; Fusobacteria
Affiliations: Special Infectious Agents Unit, King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia., Aix Marseille Université, IRD, APHM, VITROME, IHU-Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France., Laboratory of Medical Microbiology, Hellenic Pasteur Institute, Athens, Greece., Unit of Bioinformatics and Applied Genomics, Hellenic Pasteur Institute, Athens, Greece., Clinical Biochemistry Department, College of Medicine, Nutrition unit, King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia., King Abdulaziz city for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia., Family and Community Medicine department, Faculty of Medicine-Rabigh Branch, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia., Biological Sciences Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia., Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia., Department of Laboratory Medical Technology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia., Aix Marseille Université, IRD, APHM, MEPHI, IHU-Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France.

Abstract:  The gut microbiota is often affected by the dietary and lifestyle habits of the host, resulting in a better efficacy that favors energy harvesting from the consumed food. Our objective was to characterize the composition of gut microbiota in adult Saudis and investigate possible association with lifestyle and dietary practices. Feces from 104 Saudi volunteers (48% males) were tested for microbiota by sequencing the V3-V4 region of bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA). For all participants, data were collected related to their lifestyle habits and dietary practices. The relative abundance (RA) of Fusobacteria was significantly higher in normal weight Saudis (P = 0.005, false discovery rate-FDR = 0.014). Individuals who consumed more coffee presented marginally significant more RA of Fusobacteria (P = 0.02, FDR = 0.20) in their gut microbiota compared to those reporting low or no coffee intake, but the RA of Fusobacteria was significantly higher in smokers compared to non-smokers (P = 0.009, FDR = 0.027). The RA of Fusobacteria was also significantly higher in those reporting daily consumption of bread (P = 0.005, FDR = 0.015). At the species level, the gut microbiota of people who consumed coffee was dominated by Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron followed by Phascolarctobacterium faecium and Eubacterium rectale. Similarly, the gut microbiota of smokers was also enriched by B. thetaiotaomicron and Lactobacillus amylovorus. Smoking cessation, bread and coffee consumption induce changes in the intestinal microbial composition of Saudis. This indicates the significance of diet and lifestyle practices in the determination of the composition of the gut microbiota, which could possibly lead later to changes in metabolic profile and weight. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 There appears to be duplicate publication. What is effectively the same paper also appeared as  The Modification of Kernel Function and Its Applications [(Zhao 2014)] . The timing was very close: the present paper has a publication date of 04 December 2013, while Zhao (2014) was submitted to the journal the following day, 05 Dec 2013. Could the authors indicate whether they were aware of the duplication? Zhao, and the first author here are both at Department of Mathematics and Information Science, Henan University of Economics and Law, so I assume that they are aware of each other s work. Here are some parallel passages to document the description that the two are  effectively the same paper . The Introductions, with Zhao at left: ![] The concluding pages: ![] ,