Dietary Flavonoid, Gut Microbiota, and Intestinal Diseases: A Review With Bibliometric Trends and Research Insights

Flavonoids are one of the bioactive compounds among polyphenols that are found in fruits and vegetables. The flavonoids mostly get metabolized in the alimentary canal, and their interaction with the gut microbiome becomes inevitable. The gut microbiota continuously interacts with dietary flavonoids and catabolizes them into more minor metabolites directly associated with the host health. The gut microbiota is resilient and highly dependent on environmental entities, such as xenobiotics, antibiotics, and diet patterns. Any abrupt alterations in these exogenous entities cause gut dysbiosis, resulting in different abnormalities and disorders. The flavonoids alter the proportion of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes in the gut, and those bacteria play a decisive role in the host physiology. This review draws attention to how flavonoids ameliorate gut dysbiosis and inflammation. Additionally, the biomarkers and cell signaling before and after the onset of gut dysbiosis have been discussed. Ultimately, we emphasize how flavonoid-mediated gut microbiome ameliorates intestinal-related metabolic conditions such as obesity, Crohn's disease (CD), and intestinal ulcerative colitis (IUC). In the future, further studies on the clinical level and model-based studies will warrant the use of flavonoids as better therapeutics and understanding of host health correlated with the microbiome.