The 33rd Annual Congress of ECOG, Ghent, Belgium, October 8–10, 2024, Abstracts

Introduction: Dietary interventions may be influenced by host's gut microbiota.Our study aimed to determine if baseline gut microbiota diversity predicted the success of a multicomponent intervention for childhood obesity.Methods: Anthropometry, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, HOMA-IR, and blood pressure were evaluated and standardized at baseline and after one year, and fecal samples analysed at baseline in 41 children with obesity (8 to 14 years).The intervention's success was based on the improvement of metabolic risk score (MetScore).Associations between alpha diversity and MetScore improvement were evaluated with Spearman's correlations and logistic regression models.A ROC curve was used to determine a cut-off for alpha diversity to predict children with low response to the intervention.Results: Baseline Shannon's (rho = -0.39,p = 0.012) and Simpson's (rho = -0.42,p < 0.001) diversity indices were directly associated with MetScore improvement.Shannon (OR = -2.95[-5.00--0.90],p-value= 0.006) and Simpson (OR = -13.70[-22.74--4.65],p-value= 0.004) indices indicated a high response to the intervention independently of BMI loss, gender, age and intervention group.A cut-off value of 0.849 for Simpson's index (AUC: 0.690; sensitivity: 0.227; specificity: 0.947) classified children into high and low response to the intervention.Children below the cutoff showed significantly less improvement in MetScore (p=0.014) and systolic blood pressure (p=0.028).Conclusion: Baseline microbiota diversity may predict cardiometabolic improvement in childhood obesity interventions.Identifying children at risk of poor response to multicomponent interventions may allow personalizing treatments.Further research is needed to tailor interventions based on this hypothesis.