The Microbiome: The New Frontier of Longevity

A conversation with Katrien Van Laere, Chief Scientific & Medical Officer, Danone Research and Innovation, and Christophe Lay, Senior Team Leader for Gut Microbiology and OneBiome at Danone Research and Innovation & Honorary Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore

Between 2015 and 2050, the number of people over 60 will nearly double – which is fantastic news for birthday cake decorators.¹ But while more of us are living longer, we’re not living healthier. That’s why we need tools to understand the challenges and seize the opportunities that will shape the future of nutrition. 

One of the most promising tools for healthy longevity is our gut microbiome. And microbiome science is advancing fast, redefining how we think about aging, resilience, and longterm wellbeing. 

• Gut microbiome health is linked to overall health and aging.  
• Diversity is a feature of a healthy microbiome, and this declines with age.
• Age-related microbial decline is not inevitable: Nutrition, lifestyle, and biotics can preserve diversity and slow biological aging.
• The global Danone OneBiome Laboratory applies state-of-the-art science and technology to turn microbiome research into nutrition solutions.

Research shows that environmental factors—diet, physical activity, sleep, stress—drive nearly 80% of age-related health, far more than genetics. These factors also have been shown to influence our microbiome’s composition and function. 

This is key, since the trillions of microorganisms in the gut influence all sorts of functions, such as digestion and nutrient absorption, immune regulation, metabolism, inflammation and communication between our gut and our brain.

Here’s where it gets interesting. A diverse microbiome is like having a soccer team with players in different positions: each individual player contributes to the team win and helps the team (our body) bounce back from challenges, like health conditions. 

Luckily, environmental factors are easier to modify than genetics. Exploring the many interactions between the microbiome and our bodies helps us better understand what causes the microbiome to shift from a protective to a risk factor for age-related diseases. We can apply this knowledge to develop targeted nutritional solutions, products, and services to manage the microbiome for lifelong health. 

“Ageing well” means maintaining our physical and mental abilities, so we can continue living full, independent, active lives. As the number of older people continues to rise — supporting healthy aging becomes not only an individual’s aim, but a societal imperative.

What if we see our microbiome as a tiny jazz band that sets a rhythm for our whole body? As we age, the trumpetist (let’s call it Bifidobacterium) leaves the stage. Our bodies notice the band has changed, and so has the tune. It leads to:

• lower microbial diversity
• weakened gut defenses
• reduced short-chain fatty acid production  
• increased vulnerability to inflammation and disease.

Bifidobacterium is not the only member of the band, but we notice when it’s not there. Similarly, the loss of other bacteria can shift the rhythm of the whole ecosystem. 

Healthy centenarians often have microbiomes similar to those of much younger adults. A striking example is Maria Branyas Morera, who lived to be 117 and was featured in a landmark multiomics study. Multiomics is a powerful technique that combines multiple layers of data to give a more complete, understanding of biology.  

From the research, we know that Maria’s gut microbiome stayed highly diverse, with high numbers of Bifidobacteria, and the microbiome stability typically associated with youth. Notably, she consumed three yogurts a day for two decades, suggesting more than an obvious appreciation of dairy: links between fermented foods and microbial resilience. 

Researchers are also investigating the gut microbiota to see if certain bacteria are associated with specific diseases.² Research like this suggests that preserving these beneficial bacteria at the expense of bacteria that raise our risk of disease may be a target for interventions, like nutrition and lifestyle changes, to support healthier aging.

Microbiome & Biological Aging

The microbiome influences some of the major signs of aging, including inflammation, mitochondrial function, energy regulation, and epigenetics. Dysbiosis contributes to “inflammaging”, while reduced SCFAs weaken gut barrier function and metabolic balance. 

In parallel, new discoveries show gut microbes affect circadian rhythm, gene regulation, and immune tone—all essential to biological age.

Our scientific leadership is rooted in biotics, which are key nutritional components that support the gut microbiome. These tools shape Danone’s science-based portfolio across life stages. Learn more:

What’s the difference between probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, and postbiotics? 

By choosing foods that support our gut and microbiomes we can help build and maintain a balanced, interconnected system that supports our health from early life to aging. 

Danone builds on more than 100 years of expertise in fermented foods and biotics, from its first yogurts to modern-day probiotics, postbiotics, and AI powered  microbiome models. Through that long history, we have built a growing understanding of our microbiome. It used to be mostly a black box, but new technologies have started to peel back the layers and visualize the complex pathways and connections between the non-human cells of our microbiome and our own bodies.  

In September 2025, we opened the global Danone OneBiome Laboratory in Paris-Saclay, France. This cutting-edge lab allows researchers to conduct different activities, from building microbiome databases, using advanced sequencing technologies, and applying artificial intelligence to generate predictive health models. 

• Our proprietary AI-based microbiome age model integrates microbiome composition with clinical and lifestyle data to create a new marker of health and longevity. 
• The integration of the Day Two database strengthens our leadership with more than 66,000 adult gut microbiome profiles linked to clinical and metabolic markers. 

An example of how biotics can support aging is the recent YouthBiotics™ study in Beijing, China. In this study, researchers investigated a synbiotic formula in adults aged 50–70 years. Results showed increased Bifidobacterium abundance, enhanced production of short chain fatty acids and promising signals for gut barrier integrity and inflammation reduction.

From access to microbiome samples, to labs where AI helps find needles in the microbial haystacks, to nutritional science, Danone research is paving the way for a future where nutrition is personalized, evidence-based, and grounded in microbiome science. 

Partnerships enable us to understand what a healthy microbiome looks like in different parts of the world. We collaborate with leading institutions to advance microbiome and longevity science. Examples include:

• APC Microbiome Ireland - University College Cork - Teagasc
• Le French Gut Project - LeFrenchGut
• THDMI - Center for Microbiome Innovation
• Integrated care for older people (‎ICOPE)‎ 
• Danone Institute

1. World Health Organization fact sheet: Ageing and Health, updated 1 October 2025

2. Sun W et al. (2024) A population-scale analysis of 36 gut microbiome studies reveals universal species signatures for common diseases. NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes 10:96. DOI: 10.1038/s41522-024-00567-9