we examined the time-dependent effects of synthetic diets with varying fat and cholesterol contents on both the oral and gut microbiota composition, as well as metabolic parameters, in mice.
The gut microbiota has been identified as a potential factor driving diet-induced obesity and associated diseases, while also the oral microbiota may be involved. However, many diet-induced obesity studies use unpurified chow diet as a healthy control and focus on a single timepoint when obesity and its co-morbidities are established, which hampers data interpretation. Since it remains unclear how diet and microbiota interact during the onset of obesity and its associated diseases, we examined the time-dependent effects of synthetic diets with varying fat and cholesterol contents on both the oral and gut microbiota composition, as well as metabolic parameters, in mice.