Gut microbiota discovers new target for nutritional intervention in diabetes

On March 9, "Science" published online the latest achievement "Gut bacteria selectively promoted by dietary fibers to alleviate type 2 diabetes" led by Professor Zhao Liping from the School of Life Science and Technology of Shanghai Jiao Tong University
.
The study found that by providing rich and diverse dietary fiber, specific beneficial bacteria in the human gut can be increased, thereby improving the clinical symptoms of type 2 diabetes
.

Recent studies have found that the human gut microbiota is closely related to the occurrence and development of metabolic diseases, and obesity can be treated by regulating the intestinal microbiota through a high-fiber diet
.
But is it possible to treat type 2 diabetes by altering the gut microbiome in the same way? Professor Zhao Liping, who has discovered and verified the first intestinal pathogenic strain that can cause obesity, and Professor Peng Yongde, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, First People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Dr.
Zhang Chenhong, State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Shanghai Jiaotong University jointly organized Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Expert teams from the Key Laboratory of University System Biomedicine of the Ministry of Education, the Department of Gastroenterology of the First People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University, Sijing Hospital and Sijing Community Health Service Center in Songjiang District, Shanghai, Qidong People's Hospital of Jiangsu Province, and Rutgers University, USA research work
.
 

 

Through open randomized controlled trials combined with metagenomics analysis, the research team found that adding a large amount of diverse dietary fiber can significantly improve insulin secretion and insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetics by changing the structure of the flora; at the strain level, the research group A group of "short-chain fatty acid" producing bacteria that are beneficial to increase insulin secretion and improve insulin sensitivity have been identified, which can be regarded as "ecological functional groups" necessary to restore and maintain human health
.
The research team found that the higher the recovery of the abundance and diversity of this "group" of bacteria, the lower the reduction in glycated hemoglobin, and established a statistical model to predict efficacy using early changes in these key bacteria
.
According to the bacterial characteristics of each patient, the growth of this "group" of bacteria can be specifically promoted through a rationally designed high-fiber diet, which may become a new way of personalized nutritional treatment of diabetes in the future
.
 

 

This study proposes to use ecological "guilds" to study the role of members of the gut microbiota in human health and disease, compared with taxonomic status-based analysis methods in conventional research.
Functional group-based methods provide a more ecologically meaningful way for dimensionality reduction of microbiome data, helping us to better identify important functional members of the gut microbiota associated with human health and disease
.
This study demonstrates that restoring or enhancing important lost or diminished functions in the gut ecosystem by increasing functionally active important bacterial members in the gut is key to rebuilding a healthy gut microbiota, which can help the host improve disease phenotypes
.
This study not only provides ideas and analytical methods for the study of the relationship between gut microbiota and chronic metabolic diseases, but also shows that targeting key gut bacteria for individualized nutritional intervention to regulate gut microbiota is the key to control 2 It is a new and effective means of type diabetes, and also has the potential to be extended to the prevention and treatment of other related diseases
.