Is There a Universal Endurance Microbiota?

Billions of microbes sculpt the gut ecosystem, affecting physiology. Since endurance athletes' performance is often physiology-limited, understanding the composition and interactions within athletes' gut microbiota could improve performance. Individual studies describe differences in the relative abundance of bacterial taxa in endurance athletes, suggesting the existence of an "endurance microbiota", yet the taxa identified are mostly non-overlapping. To narrow down the source of this variation, we created a bioinformatics workflow and reanalyzed fecal microbiota from four 16S rRNA gene sequence datasets associated with endurance athletes and controls, examining diversity, relative abundance, correlations, and association networks. There were no significant differences in alpha diversity among all datasets and only one out of four datasets showed a significant overall difference in bacterial community abundance. When bacteria were examined individually, there were no genera with significantly different relative abundance in all four datasets. Two genera were significantly different in two datasets (Veillonella and Romboutsia). No changes in correlated abundances were consistent across datasets. A power analysis using the variance in relative abundance detected in each dataset indicated that much larger sample sizes will be necessary to detect a modest difference in relative abundance especially given the multitude of covariates. Our analysis confirms several challenges when comparing microbiota in general, and indicates that microbes consistently or universally associated with human endurance remain elusive.

Prevalence and Sociodemographic Correlates of Unmet Need for Mental Health Counseling Among Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the prevalence and correlates of unmet need for mental health counseling among U.S. adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Data from the December 9-21, 2020, cross-sectional Household Pulse Survey (N=69,944) were analyzed. RESULTS: Overall, 12.8% of adults reported an unmet need for mental health counseling in the past month, including 25.2% of adults with a positive screen for depression or anxiety. Among adults with a positive screen, risk factors associated with an unmet need for mental health counseling included female sex, younger age, income below the federal poverty line, higher education, and household job loss during the pandemic, while protective factors included Asian and Black race. CONCLUSIONS: Over one-quarter of U.S. adults with a positive screen for depression or anxiety experienced an unmet need for mental health counseling during the pandemic. Policy makers should consider increasing funding for mental health services as part of pandemic relief legislation.