Gut microbiota products can favor diabetes

[Northerner]

A study published in the journal Cell shows that the gut microbiota has the ability to affect how cells respond to insulin, and can thus contribute to type 2 diabetes. The findings demonstrate an hereto unknown pathological mechanism.

During recent years, the gut microbiota has been associated with health and several disease conditions. However, only a few studies have investigated whether an altered gut microbiota can directly affect disease.

Scientists at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, are now showing that the gut microbiota of people with treatment-naïve type 2 diabetes can be linked to a different metabolism of the amino acid histidine, which is mainly derived from the diet.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181026105602.htm

 

[mikeyB]

Fascinating. These wee bacteria reveal even more of their lives inside us...

 

[Eddy Edson]

It really is fascinating - just thinking about how these gadzillions of critters blindly organise to keep us more-or-less in trim with all the different stuff we feed them with.

 

[Northerner]

Life is astonishingly complex 😱

 

[mikeyB]

Though it is proof of evolution, as we know from intestinal biome studies on rats. We wouldn’t have been able to evolve at all without bacteria- the mitochondria in animal (and plant) cells look very similar to enclosed bacteria. They are our intimate friends.

And it’s bacteria that fight off fungal skin infections, otherwise we would rot like old wood and produce mushrooms. If that gives you nightmares, it shouldn’t. It’s why fungal skin infections are slow to grow. It’s also why fungal infections like thrush can occur after a course of broad spectrum antibiotics.