{
  "id": 14052858,
  "title": "BioMeBar Indian Gut Reference Atlas: A Harmonised Multi-Cohort Healthy Microbiome Baseline and the Indian Gut Health Index",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/12/biomebar-indian-gut-reference-atlas-a-harmonised-multi-cohort-healthy",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.11.758353v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "For the first time, a comprehensive reference atlas of the Indian gut microbiome has been developed, providing a harmonised baseline for the country's 1.4 billion inhabitants. This effort addresses the need for accurate classification of Indian microbiomes, as existing Western-based references risk misclassification. Researchers have combined eight Indian healthy-gut microbiome cohorts, encompassing 1,672 samples from 1,456 individuals across 20 locations and six zones, into a unified matrix containing 380 bacterial families.\n\nThe study introduced the Indian Gut Health Index (IGHI), a scoring system comprising four components: diversity, taxon balance, core membership, and community typicality. The IGHI is calibrated using geography-stratified healthy Indian norms and has been validated through various analyses, including PERMANOVA and Random Forest zone classification. Results demonstrate significant compositional differences across geographies and cohorts, with the IGHI ranging from 67.6 to 72.9 across zones, indicating effective geographic normalisation.\n\nKey bacterial families identified include Lachnospiraceae (100% prevalence) and Prevotellaceae (99.5%). The study identifies two main community types: a Prevotellaceae-dominant type (69%) and an Oscillospiraceae-dominant type (31%), which contrasts with the Western three-enterotype model. The IGHI scoring system proved robust to moderate weight perturbations, with Spearman {rho} values greater than or equal to 0.88 for five of six alternative schemes.\n\nThe BioMeBarTM Indian Gut Reference Atlas, along with the IGHI scoring framework and analysis code, is now openly available for use in gut health assessment among Indian individuals. This resource marks a significant step forward in understanding and monitoring gut microbiome health in the Indian population.",
  "summary": "Population-scale gut microbiome reference databases exist for Western and East Asian cohorts, yet no harmonised healthy baseline has been available for India's 1.4 billion inhabitants, whose diets span extreme geographic and cultural gradients. Western-derived reference ranges risk systematic misclassification when applied to Indian subjects. We harmonised eight published Indian healthy-gut…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}