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Bacteria found in the human intestine capable of improving muscle strength

ugr.es

137 points by gnabgib 10 hours ago · 73 comments

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ramoz 8 hours ago

Did quick research on how to support the bacteria growth

> Dietary modifications that emphasize high-fiber and prebiotic foods and dietary supplements may support the healthy growth of Roseburia [1]

> As stated above, a Mediterranean diet is associated with increased Roseburia growth. This diet emphasizes primarily plant-based foods: whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, olive oil, and fatty fish. The high fiber and resistant starch content of these foods may fuel Roseburia and the other beneficial flora of the human microbiome [1]

> Polyphenols are plant compounds abundant in fruits, vegetables, tea, and coffee. Emerging research indicates that polyphenols can enhance Roseburia abundance indirectly by inhibiting harmful bacteria and fostering beneficial ones. [2]

[1] https://www.rupahealth.com/post/roseburia-spp-101

[2] https://www.innerbuddies.com/pages/gut-microbiome-101/gut-ba...

  • OfirMarom 8 hours ago

    Thanks for the dietary info! Helps make it concrete.

  • underlipton 7 hours ago

    tl;dr They don't know.

    I wish scientists would be more open about how little they understand digestion and nutrition, particularly on an individual level. Advice gets presented as an if-then, when it's not.

culi 9 hours ago

It works by converting fibers into butyrate. You should maintain a high fiber diet to promote Roseburia in your gut

  • adrian_b 9 hours ago

    It is known that the bacteria that produce high amount of butyrate are beneficial, e.g. by decreasing the risk of colon cancer, but this does not seem sufficient to explain the increase in muscle strength that seems to be caused by this species alone.

    The study has first found in humans a correlation between muscle strength and the presence of this bacterium. Then they have attempted to determine whether this correlation is due to a causal relationship by killing the gut bacteria in mice, then feeding them with this kind of human gut bacteria. The result was an increased muscle strength, which seems to confirm causality.

    How the bacteria increase muscle strength remains unknown. I think that a possible explanation may be that this bacterium produces some substance that mimics a human hormone, e.g. a steroid, in which case it would be a kind of natural doping.

  • DiscourseFan 8 hours ago

    I've always eaten a ton of fiber, to the point where if I stop I get constipated, and I've always put on muscle fairly easily.

  • moffkalast 8 hours ago

    You know it would be funny if at least once the finding would be "you should eat more hamburgers" or something.

    • Jensson an hour ago

      If you go to Somalia I'd bet most of those would be healthier if they started eating more hamburgers, so its context dependent.

    • HK-NC 5 hours ago

      A home made hamburger can be incredibly healthy.

      • array_key_first 2 hours ago

        It can be, but it's often not. The thing that makes hamburgers harmful isn't really the "chemicals" or processing or whatever, it's the fact that it's red meat with high amounts of saturated fat.

        You would have to use low fat beef, and ideally not beef but turkey.

        I think some people think that burgers, fries, steak, and milkshakes are bad for you because they're fast food or restaurant food. No... no that stuff is just bad for you. You'll get a heart attack if you make it at home, too. Just eat it in moderation and eat more vegetables.

  • b65e8bee43c2ed0 8 hours ago

    the fiber will promote all bacteria in your gut, not just this particular strain.

    • blargey 6 hours ago

      All fiber-consuming gut bacteria, yes - but that's basically synonymous with "good"/beneficial gut bacteria, so it's good advice even if it doesn't give people the massive gainz they might have been hoping for.

sharpshadow 8 hours ago

Active cultures are available[0] and there is certainly a way to make them available to the gut isn’t there?

0. https://webshop.dsmz.de/en/bacteria/Roseburia-inulinivorans....

ben8bit 9 hours ago

Eat some apples and add 10lb to your bench. Nice!

soopypoos 8 hours ago

Neisseria gonorrhoeae doesn't even have muscles but it can pull 100,000x its own weight

sublinear 9 hours ago

> This opens up the possibility that the bacterium under investigation could be used as a probiotic to help preserve muscle strength during aging

Maybe, but it's really hard to control for other variables here. They don't know what's causing this bacteria to diminish over time in older adults in the first place.

It could totally just be dietary habits getting worse over time as people let themselves go. Regardless of age, most people already don't eat enough protein and when they do they might not be getting "complete" proteins either (missing amino acids is common with plant-based foods).

  • fylo 8 hours ago

    For me personally, as I've gotten older I have continued to eat better and more consistently than I ever did earlier in life. I think the long term study of your own life tends to show you that diet is one of, if not the, primary factor in short and long term health and well being.

  • DennisP 6 hours ago

    That's why they followed up with an actual experiment with mice, where they found that just adding the bacteria made them stronger.

    Of course we won't know for sure before doing human experiments, but it'd be an odd coincidence if we saw the correlation in humans and causation in mice, but there was no causation in humans.

toomuchtodo 9 hours ago

Roseburia inulinivorans probiotic when? Probably add it to the premade protein shakes and mix specific to those building muscle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseburia_inulinivorans

g-b-r 8 hours ago

Will people really go after Tom Brady's stuff now? xD

shevy-java 9 hours ago

So Homer Simpson was right in the end.

Beer is basically fermented sugar (well, glucose converted to ethanol by yeast, for the most part; though its maltose first, yeast, bacteria etc... prefer glucose and maltose is a disaccharide of glucose: Maltose).

  • mikrl 8 hours ago

    Pretty sure Duff was a heavily filtered macro beer.

    Not saying engineered beer is necessarily bad- Sapporo and Asahi never disappoint- but I imagine you would want to stick to unfiltered and unpasteurized to retain some of the more… alive compounds.

  • joshuahaglund 8 hours ago

    No beer has nothing to do with Roseburia genus bacteria

  • TMWNN 4 hours ago

    >So Homer Simpson was right in the end.

    Indeed. Proof that beer builds gut strength: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrrEzyKXUnk>

roschdal 9 hours ago

I need this

FurstFly 9 hours ago

My gym bros gonna be so shocked lol

rendall 9 hours ago

...in mice. :/

  • Aboutplants 9 hours ago

    Maybe we need to flip it and start testing new mouse drugs on Humans?

  • jb1991 9 hours ago

    The reflex “in mice” meme has been annoying for quite some time.

  • adrian_b 9 hours ago

    It is not that simple.

    They have found first a correlation between the presence of this species of bacteria and muscle strength in humans.

    Then they have made an attempt to determine whether this correlation reflects a causal relationship.

    So they have fed mice previously treated with antibiotics, to remove their own gut bacteria, with this kind of bacteria extracted from humans.

    They have indeed seen an increase in muscular strength at the mice that have received the human bacteria, which seems to confirm causality between the presence of this bacterium and muscle strength.

    While they have also determined the biochemical changes in muscles that have caused increased strength, the mechanism of how the bacteria have influenced that remains a mystery. Perhaps this bacterium produces some substance that mimics a human hormone, e.g. a steroid.

    Paywalled research article: https://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2026/03/03/gutjnl-2025-336...

    • rendall 8 hours ago

      So, literally, "Bacteria found in the human intestine capable of improving muscle strength in mice" then.

      • SV_BubbleTime 8 hours ago

        If we wanted to we could either make super mice. Or have a great head start on really unethical but impressive human health progress… that just comes from all the horrible human testing that would be necessary.

  • stefs 9 hours ago

    As always. But it's a first step.

blitzar 6 hours ago

Gym bros are going to be eating their own faeces for the gainz.

grg0 9 hours ago

This is why I tell my gym bros that they should quit all that Celsius garbage and stick to the basics. You should measure your gut health by the quality of your feces (consistency, texture, colour, shape), and then your muscles and rest of your body will thank you. This research is evidence of that. The science is still catching up.

  • acessoproibido 9 hours ago

    What do you mean by celcius garbage?

    Fun fact: in Germany most toilets have a built in 'inspection plate' so you can look at your shit before you flush it. In other places I often found it hard to judge the quality because you can't even see it well or it gets flushed instantly

    • grg0 9 hours ago

      I meant Celsius, a popular energy drink in the US, but more generally that and the processed foods people take in for some supposed performance gains.

      • SV_BubbleTime 8 hours ago

        It’s gross sugar water. I accidentally bought some once and years later I found out people are intentionally drinking it.

        • simulator5g 5 hours ago

          It's not sugar, they use synthetic sweeteners. I started getting gout symptoms after picking up a Celsius habit, then quit that without making any other changes, and the symptoms went away.

    • unsupp0rted 8 hours ago

      I always wondered if the "inspection plate" was really for inspection or some side-effect of plumbing or something

    • b112 8 hours ago

      It's literally in the bowl you were just sitting in. I'm not sure where the inspection plate goes. Is this an AI saying this? Is the rest of the thread AIs? Is this all made up. What's happening!?

      I thought learning about bidets was a new experience, now inspection plates?!

      I thought I understood this part of my life.

      scared and confused

      • kadoban 8 hours ago

        It's just different shapes of toilets. There's a part without water directly under you, and then when you flush it's flooded.

      • rokkamokka 8 hours ago

        Just do a quick search for German toilet and you'll see.

      • grg0 7 hours ago

        There are no AIs here, only gains.

  • notesinthefield 8 hours ago

    It is so wonderful to hear someone else say this. My spouse and friends think In so weird for emphasizing optimizing your diet for things that digest well, macro dense and give you good shits. I am quietly pleased when my own looks completely normal and uninteresting.

  • stefs 9 hours ago

    Celsius?

  • tvshtr 9 hours ago

    "Bro, take a look at my poop"

rramadass 9 hours ago

Perhaps there is also a direct correlation between this microbiome and longevity in the so-called "blue zones" of the world like Okinawa, Sardinia etc.

We are what we eat.

  • patmorgan23 9 hours ago

    IIRC there are several of the "Blue Zones" where just bad government records. (People who had incorrect birth dates, or had already died and the government just didn't know about it)

    • SV_BubbleTime 8 hours ago

      Jose DeSanquin Demarco of Bolivia is now the world’s oldest man at 117, he attributes his health to 10 hours daily in the sun and fields farming quinoa.

      Photographed here, Jose’s 90 year old wife holds their newborn twins.

  • jareklupinski 8 hours ago

    > We are what we eat.

    putting together a theory on how bacteria organized multicellular life to exploit our macro-movements and proliferate between damp spots

  • rramadass an hour ago

    Addendum to my above thought,

    Roseburia also seems to correlate with longevity;

    The Gut Microbiome, Aging, and Longevity: A Systematic Review - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7762384/

    Deep insights into the gut microbial community of extreme longevity in south Chinese centenarians by ultra-deep metagenomics and large-scale culturomics - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41522-022-00282-3

  • tvshtr 9 hours ago

    Some of the blue zones were disproven, due to falsified documentation or lack of it.

RobRivera 9 hours ago

GAINS

emanuele-em 8 hours ago

Every few months there's a new study showing gut bacteria control yet another thing we thought was "us." Mood, cognition, immune response, and now muscle strength. Starting to wonder what's even left.

  • dd8601fn 7 hours ago

    And yet, still no serious fixes for any of it that aren’t just jabronis pitching overpriced and ineffective supplements.

    • wiml 5 hours ago

      Recommendation #1 is almost always "eat a healthy, varied diet high in vegetables, fiber, etc". Pretty f'in straightforward if you ask me.

      • array_key_first 2 hours ago

        Yes, I think some people are waiting for doctors to tell them that they can eat hamburgers and drink milkshakes and be healthy.

        Remember when Mom said to eat your vegetables? Turns out she was right.

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