Environmental Health volume 21 , Article number: 46 Cite this article. Metrics details. Dietary habits have a profound influence on the metabolic activity of gut microorganisms and their influence on health. Concerns have been raised as to whether the consumption of foodstuffs contaminated with pesticides can contribute to the development of chronic disease by affecting the gut microbiome.
We performed the first pesticide biomonitoring survey of the British population, and subsequently used the results to perform the first pesticide association study on gut microbiome composition and function from the TwinsUK registry. Dietary exposure of common insecticide, herbicide, or fungicide residues and the faecal microbiome in 65 twin pairs in the UK was investigated.
The composition and metabolic activity of faecal microbiota was evaluated using shotgun metagenomics and metabolomics respectively. We performed a targeted urine metabolomics analysis in order to evaluate whether pesticide urinary excretion was also associated with physiological changes. Food frequency questionnaires showed that residues from organophosphates were higher with increased consumption of fruit and vegetables.
A total of 34 associations between pesticide residue concentrations and faecal metabolite concentrations were detected. Glyphosate excretion was positively associated with an overall increased bacterial species richness, as well as to fatty acid metabolites and phosphate levels.
The insecticide metabolite Br2CA, reflecting deltamethrin exposure, was positively associated with the phytoestrogens enterodiol and enterolactone, and negatively associated with some N-methyl amino acids. Urine metabolomics performed on a subset of samples did not reveal associations with the excretion of pesticide residues.
