Could probiotics prevent DIABETES? Gut bacteria imbalance 'triggers type 2 disease'
Published 18 Jul 2016
A daily dose of probiotics could help ward off disease, such as type 2 diabetes, new research today suggests.
The new findings add to the ever-growing sphere of scientific research focusing on the importance of the bacteria that lies in a person's gut.
And they could have implications for the 28 million Americans and the 3.6 million people in the UK living with type 2 diabetes.
Such studies have pointed to the role of the gut microbiota in obesity, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and other illnesses.
And now, scientists at the University of Copenhagen have found that imbalances in the bacteria within a person's gut can cause insulin resistance, and thus type 2 diabetes.
Professor Oluf Pedersen, senior lead author of the paper, said: 'We show that specific imbalances in the gut microbiota are essential contributors to insulin resistance, a forerunner state of widespread disorders like type 2 diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases, which are in epidemic growth.'
Researchers, working with colleagues from the Technical University of Denmark, examined 277 non-diabetic individuals and 75 type 2 diabetic patients for the purposes of their study.
They performed analyses of the action of the hormone, insulin.
To do so, the researchers monitored the concentrations of more than 1,200 metabolites in blood.
And they performed advanced DNA-based studies of hundreds of bacteria in the human intestinal tract to explore if certain imbalances in gut microbiota cause common metabolic and cardiovascular disorders.
The researchers found that people who had poor insulin action, and were therefore insulin resistant, had elevated levels of a group of amino acids in their blood.
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Can someone explain this in layman's language especially in relation to those of us who have type 2 insulin reliant diabetes and whether it will help
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