Gut microbiome in early life and bone health outcomes at age 6: a Danish mother-child cohort study
Authors' conclusion
In a well-powered unselected cohort study with longitudinal sampling of the gut microbiome, there were some suggestive but no consistent associations between the early gut microbiome and bone health outcomes at 6 yr of age.
Study context
- Population
- Children recruited in pregnancy and followed prospectively in the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood2010 cohort
- Participants
- 700 children
- Outcome
- Total body less head BMD and area-adjusted BMC measured by DXA
- Follow-up
- 6 yr of age
Methodological detailspopulation-based mother-child cohort, longitudinal sampling, Gut microbiome by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing (V4) at 1 wk (n = 445), 1 mo (n = 492), 1 yr (n = 508), 4 yr (n = 350) and 6 yr (n = 327), Analyses: multiple linear regression, permutational analysis of variance, differential abundance analysis, Random Forest machine learning
- Population-based mother-child cohort
- Longitudinal sampling
- Gut microbiome by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing (V4) at 1 wk (n = 445), 1 mo (n = 492), 1 yr (n = 508), 4 yr (n = 350) and 6 yr (n = 327)
- Analyses: multiple linear regression, permutational analysis of variance, differential abundance analysis, Random Forest machine learning
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
6 yr
- Few associations between early-life gut microbiome and bone health outcomes at age 6
- Negative associations between alpha diversity and area-adjusted BMC at 4 yr
- Beta diversity of gut microbiome at 6 yr associated with concurrent BMD
- Escherichia-Shigella abundance at 1 mo associated with lower BMD
- Sutterella abundance at 1 yr associated with lower BMD and area-adjusted BMC at 6 yr
- No other associations between gut microbiome and bone outcomes at any time point
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Original publication
Gut microbiome in early life and bone health outcomes at age 6: a Danish mother-child cohort study. J Bone Miner Res. Published 12 August 2025. doi:10.
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