Longevity Briefs: Warm temperatures increase bone strength via altering the gut microbiota

Longevity briefs provides a short summary of a novel research, medicine, or technology that caught the attention of our researchers in Oxford, due to its potential to improve our health, wellbeing, and longevity.

Why is this research important: Osteoporosis is the most prevalent metabolic bone diseases, which leads to fragile bones, significantly reducing the quality of life. Gut microbiota plays an important part in our metabolism and research have shown that the environment outside (particularly temperature) has an effect on our microbiota. Therefore, there is a possibility that the temperature might influence osteoporosis risks by influencing our intestinal microbiota and thus our metabolism.

What did the researchers do: In this article, researches have conducted a series of experiments to show the effect of temperature on bone strength. They have shown that warmth exposure improves bone strength in adulthood in mice, as well as data analysis showing that people living further away from tropics have higher chances of hip fractures. On top of that, researches have shown that warm temperature alters microbiota composition in mice and transplantation of warm-adapted microbiota to donors, decreases bone loss.

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