Biological aging is associated with gut microbiome alterations, including depletion of commensals and enrichment of disease-linked pathobionts. However, the extent to which these changes overlap with disease-associated microbiome signatures remains unclear. Here, we re-examined 45 454 gut microbiomes (141 studies) to quantify overlap between aging-associated microbiome alterations and six major diseases. Cardiometabolic diseases showed the greatest overlap, followed by colorectal cancer. We identified 15 microbes enriched with aging and depleted in health, of which > 50% belonged to oral-associated Streptococcus, Veillonella and Rothia clades. Review of two population-level cohorts (6029 subjects) revealed reproducible associations between these microbes and seven cardiometabolic disease-linked medications. We further discuss their medication associations and propose strategies to deconfound medication- and disease-associated microbiome signatures in aging studies.
Raval et al. (Sat,) studied this question.