Down-to-Earth Studies of the Gut Microbiome in Bone Health and Disease

The gut microbiome is considered a key modulator of human health, with growing evidence for effects across multiple body systems and where skeletal health outcomes are no exception. Hundreds of publications have emerged in the last years, extending from fundamental (in vitro and in vivo animal) studies to interventional trials (mostly focusing on probiotics and prebiotics), supporting a putative relationship between variation in the gut microbiome and bone metabolism. Nevertheless, in what way the gut microbiome triggers bone disease remains to be clearly elucidated. Therefore, the bench‐to‐bedside trajectory of gut microbiome research could benefit from the contribution of large epidemiological (observational) studies that can aid the understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms and, in theory, orient the design of interventional studies to successfully improve bone health.

In this issue, Orwoll and colleagues describe a comprehensive fecal microbiome study embedded in the well‐known MrOS (US) cohort study of community‐dwelling older men (n = 831, age range 78 to 98 years). [...]