Giorgos Aristotelous

This systematic review of 231 studies reveals that moderate exercise improves gut health through enhanced motility, reduced inflammation, and beneficial microbiota changes, while high-intensity activity can cause GI symptoms via splanchnic hypoperfusion and increased permeability. Personalized exercise and dietary strategies are essential.

Eight weeks of aerobic exercise in overweight/obese women improved body composition, lipid profiles, inflammation, and significantly reduced intestinal permeability markers zonulin and LBP. Benefits were similar in young and middle-aged groups, demonstrating exercise effectiveness regardless of menopausal status.

This rapid review of seven studies finds resistance training does not significantly alter gut microbiome composition or diversity. However, it may improve gut barrier function (decreased zonulin, increased mucin) and reveals intriguing gut-muscle axis connections where butyrate-producing bacteria associate with greater strength gains.

This study of 38 athletes found that intense training increases intestinal permeability, but surprisingly, elevated stool zonulin did not correlate with permeability. Many athletes showed permeability without high zonulin, suggesting exercise damages gut barriers through mechanisms independent of the zonulin pathway.

This rigorously designed study compared heavy metal excretion in sweat from treadmill running (5-10 km/h, 25°C) versus sauna exposure (45°C). Exercise produced significantly higher concentrations of nickel, lead, copper, and arsenic, indicating dynamic activity may enhance detoxification more effectively than passive heating.

This review synthesizes evidence on melatonin’s effects on skeletal muscle health, exercise, and the gut–muscle axis, highlighting its mitochondrial, anti-inflammatory, and microbiome-modulating actions, with emphasis on microbial associations relevant to muscle aging and performance.

A single dose of melatonin enhances growth hormone secretion and reduces somatostatin in resistance-trained young males, especially when combined with heavy exercise, but has less effect in females. IGF-1 levels remain unchanged. Melatonin is safe acutely at these doses.

This study reveals that Graves’ disease patients exhibit distinct gut microbiota signatures, with increased Bacteroidetes and Prevotellaceae and decreased Firmicutes and Lachnospiraceae, strongly associated with thyroid function markers. These microbial shifts may play a role in GD pathogenesis and serve as potential clinical biomarkers.

This study identified distinctive alterations in gut microbiota in Graves’ disease, including reduced diversity and specific taxonomic shifts. Key microbial signatures correlated with thyroid autoimmunity, highlighting potential diagnostic biomarkers and suggesting that microbiome modulation may offer new therapeutic avenues for Graves’ disease.

This study reveals that Chinese Graves’ disease patients exhibit reduced gut microbiota diversity and distinct compositional changes, with specific genera correlating to disease markers. Anti-thyroid therapy partially restores microbiome diversity, suggesting gut microbial signatures may serve as biomarkers or therapeutic targets in Graves’ disease.

This study demonstrates that gut microbiome composition and function differ significantly between Graves’ disease and Graves’ orbitopathy, with specific taxa correlating with thyroid autoimmunity. These findings highlight the potential of gut microbial markers for distinguishing GO from GD and understanding disease mechanisms.

This study found that Graves’ disease is associated with reduced gut microbial diversity and specific increases in Bacilli, Lactobacillales, Prevotella, Megamonas, and Veillonella, alongside decreases in Ruminococcus, Rikenellaceae, and Alistipes, identifying a distinctive intestinal microbiota signature relevant to GD pathogenesis.

This systematic review found insufficient evidence to confirm that physical exercise reduces endometriosis risk or symptoms, though some data suggest a potential protective effect. Well-designed controlled trials are needed to clarify the role of exercise in endometriosis prevention and management.

OverviewResistance (strength) training appears to exert modest but meaningful effects on the human gut microbiome. Unlike aerobic exercise, which often leads to pronounced changes in microbial diversity and taxonomic shifts, short-term resistance training tends to result in minimal changes in overall microbiome composition or alpha-diversity. However, this does not indicate a lack of functional impact. […]

This review found that physical activity and exercise significantly improved pain, emotional well-being, and perceived control in women with endometriosis, supporting their use as safe and effective complementary therapies.

Moderate physical activity was associated with improved thyroid function and reduced thyroid autoimmunity in a large Korean cohort, especially in women and individuals with elevated BMI.

This study found that a structured exercise program in euthyroid Graves’ disease patients improved aerobic capacity, reduced fatigue, normalized some thyroid hormones, accelerated anti-thyroid medication withdrawal, and reduced relapse rates, highlighting exercise’s clinical and potential immunological benefits.

What was studied?This case–control observational study investigated the associations between peripheral blood cytokine profiles and gut microbiota composition in patients with Graves’ disease (GD), the most common autoimmune thyroid disorder. The study aimed to elucidate the interplay between immune dysregulation—specifically changes in cytokines such as interleukin-10 (IL-10), transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), and interleukin-17A (IL-17A)—and […]

This study reveals distinct compositional changes in the gut microbiota of Graves’ disease patients, notably increased Bacteroidetes and Prevotellaceae and decreased Firmicutes and Lachnospiraceae, suggesting potential microbial biomarkers and a role for gut dysbiosis in the disease’s pathogenesis.

This study reveals distinct gut microbiome alterations in Graves’ disease, identifies 12 key bacterial genera as diagnostic signatures, and shows microbiota recovery after antithyroid therapy, linking dysbiosis to immune regulation and disease pathogenesis.

This prospective study identifies a unique gut microbiome signature in Graves’ disease, characterized by decreased SCFA-producing bacteria and increased pro-inflammatory taxa, which partially recovers with antithyroid therapy. Twelve genera robustly distinguish GD, offering potential for early diagnosis and microbiome-targeted interventions.

Integrated microbiome-metabolome study reveals dysbiosis and metabolic shifts in Graves’ disease and hypothyroidism, highlighting potential biomarkers like depleted Bacteroides for thyroid disorders.

This study demonstrates that Graves’ disease and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients share distinct gut microbiome signatures—particularly involving Bacillus, Blautia, and Ornithinimicrobium—and a common enrichment of the ABC transporter pathway, supporting a microbiome-driven mechanism in autoimmune thyroid disease pathogenesis.

This study identified distinct alterations in gut microbiota composition and function in Graves’ disease and Graves’ orbitopathy patients compared to healthy controls, highlighting specific microbial taxa and metabolic pathways that may contribute to disease mechanisms and serve as future biomarkers.

This cross-sectional study found that Graves’ disease patients have distinctly altered gut microbiota—lower Firmicutes, higher Bacteroidetes, and reduced butyrate-producers—suggesting a role for the microbiome in disease pathogenesis and as a diagnostic biomarker.

This study reveals that Graves’ disease is linked to distinct gut microbiota alterations, particularly increased Ruminococcus and Lactobacillus and decreased Synergistetes and Phascolarctobacterium, which correlate with thyroid autoantibody status and may serve as microbiome-based biomarkers for disease activity and therapeutic response.

Graves’ disease patients show distinctive gut microbiota profiles, with increased Bacteroidetes and specific pro-inflammatory bacteria, despite no difference in overall diversity. Key taxa correlate with clinical GD parameters, highlighting their potential as diagnostic biomarkers and supporting a role for gut dysbiosis in GD pathogenesis.

Graves’ disease patients display a distinct gut microbiota signature, characterized by reduced diversity and altered abundance of key microbial taxa, including increased Bacilli, Prevotella, and Megamonas, and decreased Ruminococcus and Alistipes, suggesting a role for the microbiome in GD pathogenesis.