. 2020 Dec 23;13(1):16. doi: 10.3390/nu13010016

Table 2.

Dietary interventions, supplementation with probiotics and prebiotics and assessment of the effect of physical activity on elderly individuals, with or without the concurrence of metabolic diseases.

Reference	Subjects	Methodological Approach/Intervention	Main Findings in Gut Microbiota Composition
Dietary Interventions, Probiotics and Prebiotics
[82] Cancello et al. 2019	≥65 years old obese women (20)	Longitudinal study. Hypocaloric mediterranean diet (15 days, DIET), hypocaloric mediterranean diet + VSL#3 probiotic mix (15 days, PRO)	DIET	PRO
[82] Cancello et al. 2019	≥65 years old obese women (20)		↑ Parabacteroides ↑ Bacteroides ↑ Christensenellaceae ↑ Methanobrebrevibacter ↓ Collinsela	↑ Akkermansia
[83] Ghosh et al. 2020	65–80 years old (286 M and 326 F)	Randomized multicenter single-blind controlled trial. Mediterranean diet (DIET) and control group (CON) (1 year)	DIET ↑ Faecalibacteriumn prausnitzii ↑ Roseburia ↑ Eubacterium ↑ Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron ↓ Ruminococcus torques ↓ Collinsela aerofaciens
[84] Mitchell et al. 2020	≥70 years old men (30)	Randomized single-blind controlled trial. Diet with the recommended protein intake (RDA) or twice the recommended protein intake (2RDA) (10 weeks)	No significant differences reported
[85] Tran et al. 2019	Young healthy (13 M and 16 F). Community dwelling (>65 years old; 10 M and 18 F) and institutionalized elderly (>65 years old; 9 M and 13 F)	Randomized single-blind controlled trial. Prebiotic mix (PRE) vs. placebo (maltodextrin). Single daily dose over 26 weeks (Double dose for frail subjects).	PRE ↑ Ruminoccocaceae ↑ Parabacteroides ↑ Clostridium cluster IV ↑ Phascolarctobacterium (Significance reached for institutionalized subjects at 13 week)
[86] Kim et al. 2020	≥65 years old (53)	Randomized double-blind, multicenter controlled trial. Bifidobacterium bifidum BGN4 and Bifidobacterium longum BORI (1 × 10⁹ CFU/dose) vs. placebo (two doses/day, 12 weeks)	PRO ↓ Clostridiales ↓ Prevotellaceae ↓ Allisonela ↓ Eubacterium
Physical activity
[87] Aoyagi et al. 2019	65–92 years old (140 M and 198 F)	Monitoring of daily physical activity by electronic device over 1 month. Comparative study between more active (>15 min/day at >3 METS;MA) and less active (<15 min min/day at >3 METS; LA)	MA ↑ Bacillaceae ↓ Fusobacteriaceae
[88] Castro-Mejía et al. 2020	>65 years old (109 M and 98 F)	Comparative study of patients stratified into high (HF) and low-physical fitness (LF)	HF	LF
[88] Castro-Mejía et al. 2020	>65 years old (109 M and 98 F)		Bifidobacterium adolescentis Christensenella	Enterobacterales
[89] Taniguchi et al. 2018	62–76 years old men (33)	Randomised crossover trial. 3 sessions/week exercise in a cyclo-ergometer (TRA) and control sedentary period (CON; 5 weeks each)	TRA ↑ Oscillospira (CON first only) ↓ C. difficile
[90] Morita et al. 2019	>65 years old women (32)	Non-randomized comparative trial. 12 weeks of 1 h/daily brisk walking (TRA) vs. 1 h/weekly session of trunk muscle training (CON)	TRA	CON
[90] Morita et al. 2019	>65 years old women (32)		↑ Bacteroides ↓ Clostridium subcluster XIV	↓ Clostridium subcluster IX
[91] Yu et al. 2018	65–80 years old patients with hypertension (32 M and 24 F)	Comparative study of patients classified according to Weber’ system for functional capacity. Normal exercise capacity (NE) vs. reduced exercise capacity (RE)	NE	RE
[91] Yu et al. 2018	65–80 years old patients with hypertension (32 M and 24 F)		↑ Betaproteobacteria ↑ Ruminococcaceae ↑ Faecalibacterium	↑ Escherichia_Sigella ↑ Lactobacillales ↑ Lachnospiraceae ↑ Blautia
[92] Zhu et al. 2020	Healthy elderly and overweight elderly (>61 years old) (897)	Comparative study. Overweight elderly daily exercise (DROE, 74) group vs. overweight elderly never or rare exercise group (NROE, 222)	DROE ↑ Turicibacteraceae ↓ Pseudomonadaceae ↓ Oxalobacteraceae ↓ Odoribacteraceae ↓ Barnesiellaceae

F: female; M: male. Changes (↑: increase; ↓: decrease) in the relative abundance of selected microbial taxa and in bacterial diversity with the interventions. Names in bold denote each group for the corresponding study and are defined in the table.