ArticleFrontiers in nutrition2022
Characteristics of the gut microbiome in esports players compared with those in physical education students and professional athletes.
Article in Frontiers in nutrition, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Association Between Esports Participation and Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Sports medicine - open · 2026Pooled it
- Trial
- The Effects of Dietary Fiber and High-Dietary-Fiber Diets on Body Weight Regulation and Lipid Metabolism in Athletes: A Narrative Review.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Review
- Human Fecal Transplantation Modifies the Gut Microbiota but Not Metabolites in Colon Cancer Patient-Derived Xenografts.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Gut microbiota of sprint athletes: signature microbes and dietary links.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Microbiome-based nutrition and the gut-muscle axis: emerging perspectives for athletic performance and recovery.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Review
- The health quality of the diet and selected health indicators of Polish e-sports players.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Gut microbiota composition correlates with PBMC microRNA expression following maximal exercise testing in endurance athletes.Frontiers in microbiomes · 2026Article
- Gut microbiome and functional adaptations to paleo and rational diets in professional athletes: a pilot study.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Unique Athletic Gut Microbiomes and Their Role in Sports Performance: A Narrative Review.Journal of human kinetics · 2025Review
- The Gut Microbiome Obesity Index: A New Analytical Tool in the Metagenomics Workflow for the Evaluation of Gut Dysbiosis in Obese Humans.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Impact of exercise-induced alterations on gut microbiota diversity and composition: comparing effects of different training modalities.Cell regeneration (London, England) · 2025Article
- Integrating metagenomics and metabolomics to study the gut microbiome and host relationships in sports across different energy systems.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Level of intestinal permeability markers and selected aspects of diet and BMI of Polish e-sports players.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Article
- Maternal and placental microbiome and immune crosstalk in pregnancies with small-for-gestational-age fetuses - a pilot case-control study.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Article
- Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry-Based Analyses of Fecal Short-Chain Fatty Acids (SCFAs): A Summary Review and Own Experience.Biomedicines · 2024Review
- Microbial and Metabolic Gut Profiling across Seven Malignancies Identifies FecalInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Breast cancer but not the menopausal status is associated with small changes of the gut microbiota.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Esports is a category of competitive video games that, in many aspects, may be similar to traditional sports; however, the gut microbiota composition of players has not been yet studied. Materials and methods: Here, we investigated the composition and function of the gut microbiota, as well as short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), and amino acids, in a group of 109 well-characterized Polish male esports players. The results were compared with two reference groups: 25 endurance athletes and 36 healthy students of physical education. DNA and metabolites isolated from fecal samples were analyzed using shotgun metagenomic sequencing and mass spectrometry, respectively. Physical activity and nutritional measures were evaluated by questionnaire. Results: Although anthropometric, physical activity and nutritional measures differentiated esports players from students, there were no differences in bacterial diversity, the Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes ratio, the composition of enterotype clusters, metagenome functional content, or SCFA concentrations. However, there were significant differences between esports players and students with respect to nine bacterial species and nine amino acids. By contrast, all of the above-mentioned measures differentiated professional athletes from esports players and students, with 45 bacteria differentiating professional athletes from the former and 31 from the latter. The only species differentiating all three experimental groups was Conclusion: Our study confirms the marked impact of intense exercise training on gut microbial structure and function. Differences in lifestyle and dietary habits between esports players and physical education students appear to not have a major effect on the gut microbiota.
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