Researchers compared the microbiomes of Nigerian farmers to those of residents of cities such as Abuja.ISTOCK, PEETERVA comparison of the microbiomes of subsistence farmers and urban residents in Nigeria finds that differences between the two begin in infancy. The study, published today (June 5) in Cell Reports, adds to an emerging picture of how differing diet and lifestyle can result in markedly divergent gut bacteria communities.
“We’ve always assumed that the microbiomes of infants were the same everywhere, and that differences came later in life,” says coauthor Silvia Turroni of the University of Bologna in Italy in a statement. “We were surprised to find that the microbiomes of infants living in rural areas were missing components that we have long believed were standard to all infant populations—especially that they were essentially devoid of Bifidobacterium,” a genus that dominates the microbiomes of Western infants.
Turroni and other members of the research team focused on the Bassa population of subsistence farmers in Nigeria and residents of four cities in the same country. They compared the makeup of the gut microbiomes of adults in each group and of babies and toddlers less than three ...
