Raylene A Reimer

University of Calgary · Faculty of Kinesiology

Purpose Obesity is a primary risk factor for knee osteoarthritis (OA). Prebiotics enhance beneficial gut microbes and can reduce body fat and inflammation. Our objective was to examine if a 6-month prebiotic intervention improved physical function in adults with knee osteoarthritis and obesity. We also measured knee pain, body composition, quality...

Background Health behaviors, such as diet and exercise, are actions individuals take that can potentially impact gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and the gut microbiota. Little is known about how health behaviors impact GI symptoms and the gut microbiota after anti-cancer therapies. Methods This is a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional study tha...

Background The gut microbiota is recognized as a regulator of brain development and behavioral outcomes during childhood. Nonetheless, associations between the gut microbiota and behavior are often inconsistent among studies in humans, perhaps because many host-microbe relationships vary widely between individuals. This study aims to stratify child...

Early-life nutrition fundamentally influences newborn development and health. Here, we present a protocol for nutritional intervention in neonatal rats using the “pup-in-a-cup” artificial rearing system. We describe steps for rat milk substitute preparation, cheek cannulation and maintenance, and nutritional manipulation during the suckling period....

Objective: Stress is common among pregnant individuals and is associated with an altered gut microbiota composition in infants. It is unknown if these compositional changes persist into the preschool years when the gut microbiota reaches an adult-like composition. This study aimed to investigate if indicators of prenatal stress (i.e., psychologica...

Although once a health concern largely considered in adults, the obesity epidemic is now prevalent in pediatric populations. While detrimental effects on skeletal muscle function have been seen in adulthood, the effects of obesity on skeletal muscle function in childhood is not clearly understood. The purpose of this study was to determine if the c...

The relationship between the gut microbiota and neurocognitive outcomes is becoming increasingly recognized; however, findings in humans are inconsistent. In addition, few studies have investigated the gut microbial metabolites that may mediate this relationship. The objective of this study was to investigate associations between full-scale intelli...

Objective: Feeding infants with human milk versus formula can produce long-lasting benefits, including reduced risk of inflammatory diseases. Most infant formulas do not contain human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), which are important carbohydrates in human breast milk displaying prebiotic properties. The study's aim was to examine the effect of se...

Background Maternal obesity prior to and during pregnancy is related to increased risk of obesity in the child. This risk may be in part mediated by altered child temperament, which can affect mother-child interactions including feeding and soothing behaviors that affect obesity risk. Our objective was to examine the association between maternal pr...

Background: Health behaviors, such as diet and exercise, are actions individuals take that can potentially impact gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and the gut microbiota. Little is known about how health behaviours impact GI symptoms and the gut microbiota after anti-cancer therapies. Methods: This is a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional study t...

Background: Adults with low incomes have lower diet quality than their higher income counterparts. In Canada, the British Columbia Farmers' Market Nutrition Coupon Program (FMNCP) provides coupons to low-income households to purchase healthy foods in farmers' markets. Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the impact of the FMNCP...

Background Cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, may adversely affect gastrointestinal (GI), physical and mental health in survivors of cancer. Objective This study investigated associations between GI, mental and physical health outcomes, and cancer treatment-related variables, such as chemotherapy, in adult cancer survivors. Methods A one-ti...

Background Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have reduced diversity and altered composition of gut microbiota (all microorganisms in the intestine) compared with healthy women. Shifts in gut microbiota with exercise may mediate some of the beneficial (e. g. anti-inflammatory) effects of exercise. Objective To evaluate the effect of exerc...

The gut microbiota refers to the collection of trillions of intestinal microorganisms that modulate central aspects of health and disease through influential effects on host physiology. Recently, a connection has been made between the gut microbiota and exercise. Initial investigations demonstrated the beneficial effects of exercise on the gut micr...

Objectives Improving diet quality among low-income populations remains a public health priority. In Canada, the British Columbia (BC) Farmers’ Market Nutrition Coupon Program (FMNCP) aims to improve the diet quality of low-income households by providing coupons to purchase healthy foods from BC farmers’ markets. This randomized controlled trial, co...

The gut microbiota plays a role in shaping overall host health and response to several cancer treatments. Factors, such as diet, exercise, and chemotherapy, can alter the gut microbiota. In the present study, the Alberta Cancer Exercise (ACE) program was investigated as a strategy to favorably modify the gut microbiota of breast cancer survivors wh...

The ketogenic diet (KD) is an effective treatment for infantile spasms syndrome (IS). However, the KD has implications for somatic growth, development, and the gut microbiota. The impact of incorporating a prebiotic fiber (PRE, oligofructose-enriched inulin, 0.8 g/dL) into a KD diet on spasms, developmental milestones, fecal gut microbiota, metabol...

Background A high-fat/high-sucrose (HFS) diet leads to osteoarthritis-like damage in the knee and shoulder (Collins et al., 2018), and to a low-level systemic inflammation that is accompanied by a decrease in insulin sensitivity. Recently, we demonstrated in a rat model, that when prebiotic fibre supplementation, aerobic exercise, or their combinat...

Chemotherapy adversely affects the gut microbiota, inducing dysbiosis, and negatively impacts gastrointestinal (GI) and psychosocial health during treatment, but little is known about the long-term effects or how these factors are related. Methods: This cross-sectional pilot study investigated the effects of chemotherapy on the gut microbiota, GI...

Dietary fiber promotes a healthy gut microbiome and shows promise in attenuating the unfavorable microbial changes resulting from a high‐fat/sucrose (HFS) diet. High‐fiber diets consisting of oligofructose alone (HFS/O) or in combination with β‐glucan (HFS/OB), resistant starch (HFS/OR), or β‐glucan and resistant starch (HFS/OBR) were fed to diet‐i...

Background Ulcerative colitis (UC) is thought to arise from dysregulated immune responses due to intestinal dysbiosis and altered epithelial barrier function. Dietary components may affect the gut microbiome and contribute to either inflammation or its resolution. The relationship between diet and disease activity in UC warrants further investigati...

Sleep plays a significant role in the mental and physical development of children. Emerging evidence in animals and human adults indicates a relationship between sleep and the gut microbiota; however, it is unclear whether the sleep of preschoolers during a key developmental period, associates with features of their gut microbiota. The objective of...

To identify possible mechanisms by which maternal consumption of non-nutritive sweeteners increases obesity risk in offspring, we reconstructed the major alterations in the cecal microbiome of 3-week-old offspring of obese dams consuming high fat/sucrose (HFS) diet with or without aspartame (5–7 mg/kg/day) or stevia (2–3 mg/kg/day) by shotgun metag...

Early life nutrition fundamentally influences neonatal development and health. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are key components of breast milk, but not standard infant formula that support establishment of the newborn gut microbiota. Using an artificial rearing system, our objective was to test the effect of two HMOs on whole body and organ gr...

To the Editors: We are very encouraged by Elia et al’s response indicating growing interest in this field. We agree that appropriate patient-reported outcomes suited to capture such interventions need to be developed by international expert groups. Devices and applications that can dynamically link physical activity and structured exercise to chang...

Objective Metabolic disturbance is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease and has been identified as a risk factor for the development of knee osteoarthritis. In this study, we sought to determine the effects of prebiotic fiber supplementation, aerobic exercise, and the combination of the 2 interventions, on the progression of knee osteoart...

Background Cancer treatments can cause significant gastrointestinal (GI) health issues, and negatively affect patient’s psychosocial health and quality of life (QOL). Novel, integrative strategies using prebiotics and probiotics have been explored for treating adverse cancer treatment-related side effects. We evaluated the current literature for in...

Objective: Emerging evidence points toward a connection between mental health and the gut microbiota and its metabolites (e.g., short-chain fatty acids). It is unknown whether the gut microbiota is associated with the development of mental health problems (e.g., internalizing or externalizing behaviors) in preschool children. The objective of this...

Background Despite advancement in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), induction and maintenance of remission remain challenging to achieve in many patients and a significant proportion of patients with IBD experience mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, and fatigue, which impair their quality of life (QoL). We aim...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the alterations with obesity, and the effects of moderate aerobic exercise or prebiotic dietary-fibre supplementation on the mechanical and biochemical properties of the tail tendon in a rat model of high-fat/high-sucrose (HFS) diet-induced obesity. Thirty-two male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized to...

Exogenous factors that may influence the pathophysiology of Giardia infection remain incompletely understood. We have investigated the role of dietary fat in the pathogenesis of Giardia infection. Male 3 to 4-week-old C57BL/6 mice were fed either a low fat (LF) or a high fat (HF) diet for 12 days and challenged with G. duodenalis . In infected anim...

Ketogenic diet (KD) is a high-fat and low-carbohydrate therapy for medically intractable epilepsy, and its applications in other neurological conditions, including those occurring in children, have been increasingly tested. However, how KD affects childhood neurodevelopment, a highly sensitive and plastic process, is not clear. In this study, we ex...

Objective: The gut microbiota is a complex ecosystem that shapes host metabolism, especially in early life. Maternal vaginal and gut microbiota is vertically transmitted to offspring during natural birth. Offspring born by cesarean section (CS) do not receive these bacteria and exhibit higher obesity risk later in life. The objective of this study...

Given that prebiotics have been shown to improve gut microbiota composition, gastrointestinal symptoms and select behaviors in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we hypothesized that prebiotic supplementation would improve sociability, communication, and repetitive behaviors in a murine model of ASD. We also examined the effect of a synbiotic (probiot...

Background/objectives Little is known about obesity risk associated with intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP). Our objective was to determine if maternal antibiotic exposure during birth is associated with child body mass index (BMI) z scores in the first 3 years of life. Methods In 2008 to 2010, 3388 pregnant women were recruited to the All O...

Mounting evidence demonstrates that paternal diet programs offspring metabolism. However, the contribution of a pre‐conception paternal high protein (HP) diet to offspring metabolism, gut microbiota, and epigenetic changes remains unclear. Here we show that paternal HP intake in Sprague Dawley rats programs protective metabolic outcomes in offsprin...

Obesity is a worldwide health concern associated with impaired physical function. It is not clear if contractile protein dysfunction contributes to the impairment of muscle function observed with obesity. The purpose of this study was to examine if diet-induced obesity affects contractile function of chemically permeabilized vastus intermedius fibr...

Objective The purpose of the pilot MOVE-C study was to examine the effects of a 12-week high-intensity interval training (HIIT) plus lifestyle education program on quality of life (QoL), behavioural and psychosocial outcomes among inactive adults with coeliac disease. Design This study used a 3 (time: baseline, immediately post and three months po...

Background Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic and painful condition where the articular cartilage surfaces progressively degenerate, resulting in loss of function and progressive disability. Obesity is a primary risk factor for the development and progression of knee OA, defined as the “metabolic OA” phenotype. Metabolic OA is associated with increas...

Breastmilk composition varies with maternal factors including diet, and confers health benefits to the neonate; however, the mechanisms mediating this protection remain incompletely understood. Our aim was to investigate the effects of supplementing a maternal high fat/sucrose (HFS) diet with prebiotic oligofructose (OFS) on milk composition in rat...

PurposeSoluble fibre beneficially affects metabolism but whether it can augment the reductions in glycemia induced through intensive weight management has not been extensively studied. Our objective was to examine the adjunct effect of the soluble viscous fibre PGX® on glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D) enrolled in a year-long me...

Background Patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) often seek advice on optimizing their diet to reduce gut inflammation. The relationship between dietary patterns, major food groups and individual nutrients, with disease activity in Crohn’s disease (CD) is incompletely understood and warrants further investigation. Aims 1.To determine whether a divers...

Background: Consuming a diet high in prebiotic fiber has been associated with improved metabolic and gut microbial parameters intergenerationally, although studies have been limited to maternal intake with no studies examining this effect in a paternal model. Method: Male Sprague Dawley rats were allocated to either (1) control or (2) oligofruct...

Obesity is a major public health problem that continues to be one of the leading risk factors for premature death. Early life is a critical period of time when the gut microbiota and host metabolism are developing in tandem and significantly contribute to long-term health outcomes. Dysbiosis of the gut microbiota, particularly in early life, can ha...

Key points Iron acts as a cofactor in the stabilization of the hypoxic‐inducible factor family, and plays an influential role in the modulation of hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction. It is uncertain whether iron regulation is altered in lowlanders during either (1) ascent to high altitude, or (2) following partial acclimatization, when compared to...

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMO)s are a key component in human milk and represent an important dietary modulator of infant gut microbiota composition and associated gut-brain axis development and homeostasis. The brain reward system, specifically the mesolimbic dopamine (DA) projections from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to nucleus accumbens (N...

This study examined associations between dietary intake and gut and systemic inflammation assessed by fecal calprotectin ≤ or > 100 μg/mg (FCP), C-reactive protein ≤ or > 5 mg/L (CRP) and serum cytokine profiles in Crohn’s disease (CD) patients in clinical remission. A 3-month observational study was conducted at the University of Calgary in Calgar...

Pulsed antibiotic treatment (PAT) early in life increases risk of obesity. Prebiotics can reduce fat mass and improve metabolic health. We examined if co-administering prebiotic with PAT reduces obesity risk in rat pups weaned onto a high fat/sucrose diet. Pups were randomized to (1) control [CTR], (2) antibiotic [ABT] (azithromycin), (3) prebiotic...

Increased consumption of high fat/sucrose (HF/S) diets has contributed to rising rates of obesity and its co-morbidities globally, while also negatively impacting male reproductive health. Our objective was to examine whether adding a methyl donor cocktail to paternal HF/S diet (HF/S+M) improves health status in fathers and offspring. From 3–12 wee...

Caffeine-containing, nutritionally fortified energy shots are consumed at high rates by adolescents, yet little is known about their metabolic impact. The purpose of this study was to examine the consequences of small format, caffeinated energy shots on glucose metabolism and gastrointestinal hormone secretion in adolescents. Twenty participants ag...

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women worldwide. The disease and its treatments exert profound effects on an individual’s physical and mental health. There are many factors that impact an individual’s risk of developing breast cancer, their response to treatments, and their risk of recurrence. The community of microorganism...

Introduction Mild obesity has been associated with postprandial brachial artery vascular dysfunction. However, direct assessment of these effects within the forearm skeletal muscle microcirculation remains unclear. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effects of mild obesity on the arm micro‐ and macrovascular responses to glucose ingestion....

Vitamin B6 plays a crucial role as a cofactor in various enzymatic reactions but bacteria-produced vitamin B6 is not sufficient to meet host requirements. Our objective was to assess the impact of diet-derived vitamin B6 on gut microbiota and host serum metabolomics. Sprague–Dawley rats (n = 47) were fed a control, low B6 (LB6) or high B6 (HB6) die...

This study assessed the feasibility and benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) plus lifestyle education among inactive adults with celiac disease. Forty-one participants were randomized to receive the intervention (HIIT plus lifestyle education; HIIT+) for 12 weeks or waitlist control (WLC). Testing was completed at baseline, immediate...

Background: Dietary intake is an important factor in the development and management of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); however, optimal dietary composition remains unclear. Moreover, there is minimal evidence on the relationship between dietary intake and markers of liver health in Canadian adults diagnosed with NAFLD. Objective: The...

In May 2019, the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) convened a panel of nutritionists, physiologists and microbiologists to review the definition and scope of synbiotics. The panel updated the definition of a synbiotic to “a mixture comprising live microorganisms and substrate(s) selectively utilized by host...

Microbial colonization of the gut early in life is crucial for the development of the immune and nervous systems, as well as influencing metabolism and weight gain. While early life exposure to antibiotics can cause microbial dysbiosis, prebiotics are non-digestible substrates that selectively promote the growth of beneficial gut microbiota. Our ob...

Microbial colonization of the gut early in life is crucial for the development of the immune and nervous systems, as well as influencing metabolism and weight gain. While early life exposure to antibiotics can cause microbial dysbiosis, prebiotics are non-digestible substrates that selectively promote the growth of beneficial gut microbiota. Our ob...

Scope : Antibiotics in early life disrupt microbiota and increase obesity risk, whereas dietary agents such as prebiotics may reduce obesity risk. We examined how antibiotics administered with/without prebiotic oligofructose, alter metabolic and microbial outcomes in pregnant rats and their offspring. Methods and results : Pregnant rats were random...

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are chief maternal milk constituents that feed the intestinal microbiota and drive maturation of the infant gut. Our objective was to determine whether supplementing individual HMOs to a weanling diet alters growth and gut health in rats. Healthy three-week-old Sprague Dawley rat pups were randomized to control, 2...

Background and aims: Crohn's disease (CD) is associated with alterations in gut microbial composition and function. This controlled-intervention study investigated the relationship between patterns of dietary intake and baseline gut microbiota in CD patients in remission and examined the effects of a dietary intervention in patients consuming a no...

Background: The low intake of dietary fiber compared to recommended amounts has been referred to as the dietary fiber gap. The addition of fiber to snack foods could favorably alter gut microbiota and help individuals meet intake recommendations. Objectives: Our objective was to examine the effect of low- and moderate-dose fiber-containing snack...

AIMS Giardia duodenalis is a protozoan parasite responsible for giardiasis, a leading cause of diarrheal disease worldwide. Giardia sp. infection disrupts the host’s intestinal barrier, leading to acute, chronic, and post‐infectious gut disorders. Giardia infections are prevalent in countries with poor sanitation as well in developed countries, alt...