ReviewNutrients2020
The Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes Ratio: A Relevant Marker of Gut Dysbiosis in Obese Patients?
Review in Nutrients, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1,274 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
1,274 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Kefir: A Potential Gut Microbiota Modulator: A Systematic Review of Human Interventional Studies.MicrobiologyOpen · 2026Pooled it
- Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis and Neuroinflammation in Alzheimer's Disease: a Systematic Review of Mechanistic Insights.Molecular neurobiology · 2026Pooled it
- Impacts of Lifestyle and Microbiota-Targeted Interventions for Overweight and Obesity on the Human Gut Microbiome: A Systematic Review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Pooled it
- Baseline gut microbiome and metabolome profiles predict weight loss after a structured lifestyle intervention.Microbiome · 2026Trial
- Weight Loss and Omega-3 Supplementation Modulate the Microbiome in Women with Increased Breast Cancer Risk.Cancer prevention research (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Trial
- Integrated multi-omic and symptom clustering reveals lower-gastrointestinal disorders of gut-brain interaction heterogeneity.Gut microbes · 2026Article
- Microbial metabolite Urolithin A protects against inorganic arsenic-induced gut barrier dysfunction in humanizedGut microbes · 2026Article
- The cervicovaginal gut microbiota axis as a key determinant of systemic physiology.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Modulation of Early-Life Calf Gut Microbiota by Bacteriocin-Producing Lactiplantibacillus pentosus AA86 and Pediococcus pentosaceus AA94.MicrobiologyOpen · 2026Article
- Gut microbiome dynamics in acute infectious diarrhea: A conceptual framework from acute dysbiosis toward precision restoration (Review).Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2026Review
- Exploratory Associations Between Height-for-Age and Gut Microbiota Composition in Healthy School-Aged Children.Current microbiology · 2026Article
- Novel inhibitors against Cryptosporidium parvum through blocking its energy metabolism.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Lactococcus lactis NZ3900/pNZ8149-ChIL-4-ChIL-2 alleviates compound stress in chicks via reshaping immune homeostasis, gut microbiota and intestinal health.Poultry science · 2026Article
- Dual Modulation of Lipid Metabolism by Adzuki Bean (Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
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- Phylum level differences in the gut bacteria of nursing infants and growth-related decreases in iron reserves are associated with the microstructural organization of cortical white matter tracts in rhesus monkeys.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Effects of Short-Term Energy Limitation at Different Levels With Normal Protein Intake on Hepatic Lipid Metabolism and the Gut Microbiota in Overweight/Obese Mice.Food science & nutrition · 2026Article
- Early-Life Dietary Protein Source Reshapes Gut Microbiota but Fails to Curtail Diet-Induced Metabolic Syndrome in Young Rats.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2026Article
- Review
1,214 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The gut microbiota is emerging as a promising target for the management or prevention of inflammatory and metabolic disorders in humans. Many of the current research efforts are focused on the identification of specific microbial signatures, more particularly for those associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Some studies have described that the gut microbiota of obese animals and humans exhibits a higher Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio compared with normal-weight individuals, proposing this ratio as an eventual biomarker. Accordingly, the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio is frequently cited in the scientific literature as a hallmark of obesity. The aim of the present review was to discuss the validity of this potential marker, based on the great amount of contradictory results reported in the literature. Such discrepancies might be explained by the existence of interpretative bias generated by methodological differences in sample processing and DNA sequence analysis, or by the generally poor characterization of the recruited subjects and, more particularly, the lack of consideration of lifestyle-associated factors known to affect microbiota composition and/or diversity. For these reasons, it is currently difficult to associate the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio with a determined health status and more specifically to consider it as a hallmark of obesity.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.