Verhoog · Nutrients 2019 · systematic review of clinical trials · n=29 trials (1,444 participants)

Dietary Factors and Modulation of Bacteria Strains of Akkermansia muciniphila and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii : A Systematic Review.

Cited 196 times in the scientific literature.

Level 1 - systematic review of randomized trials

Systematic review of 29 clinical trials

PubMed 31336737 · doi:10.3390/nu11071565 · record verified 2026-08-28

What was done

A systematic review of PubMed and Embase was conducted to identify clinical trials evaluating any dietary intervention on the abundance of human gut bacteria *Akkermansia muciniphila* and *Faecalibacterium prausnitzii*. A total of 29 unique clinical trials comprising 1,444 participants were included (5 examined *A. muciniphila*, 19 examined *F. prausnitzii*, and 6 examined both).

What was found

Caloric restriction and supplementation with pomegranate extract, resveratrol, polydextrose, yeast fermentate, sodium butyrate, and inulin increased *A. muciniphila* abundance, whereas a low-FODMAP diet decreased it. For *F. prausnitzii*, prebiotics (e.g., fructo-oligosaccharides, inulin-type fructans, raffinose) were the primary intervention studied: 7 trials reported an increase, 2 reported a decrease, and 4 reported no difference. The abstract reports no quantitative effect sizes.

Why it matters

This review collates human clinical trial data on dietary modulators of two key beneficial, anti-inflammatory gut microbes, helping guide future translational research into medical nutrition therapy for metabolic diseases.

Limits

The abstract provides directional counts rather than pooled quantitative effect sizes or meta-analytic results. Findings for *F. prausnitzii* were inconsistent across prebiotic trials, and specific interventions for *A. muciniphila* were evaluated in very few trials.

Cited by