When you eat, you are feeding the huge community of microbes that live in your gut and can influence your blood sugar.
Lifestyle changes that involve both diet and physical activity are the first tips for managing type 2 diabetes. While scientists have previously established that the benefits of lifestyle changes depend largely on how food affected blood glucose, it wasn’t until recently that they looked at the involvement of gut microbes.
The close connection between the gut microbiome and blood glucose control arises from the involvement of our gut inhabitants in:
telling us what to eat by making small proteins that are quite similar to hormones like ghrelin, which regulate hunger.
influencing the balance of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses in your immune system, which is located primarily in the small intestine.
Affecting the speed of glucose absorption. in the intestine
Sometimes the gut microbes themselves are involved in blood glucose control and related metabolic disorders. Other times, gut microbes ferment dietary fibers and prebiotics into multiple small compounds, including short-chain fatty acids that can lower blood glucose and improve insulin sensitivity, leading to better control of metabolism of glucose.
Could changing a person’s gut microbiota mean they can better prevent or control type 2 diabetes?
The gut microbiota of people with type 2 diabetes is altered, with beneficial bacteria being lacking and potentially problematic bacteria with pro-inflammatory functions being found in excess. This has led scientists to explore individualized dietary management of patients with type 2 diabetes based on personal characteristics, including their gut microbiota. Gut microbiota composition can also be used as a means to provide early diagnosis of type 2 diabetes..
While interventions that target the altered gut microbiome, such as a complex blend of dietary fibers, show promise for ameliorating metabolic diseases, it is too early to recommend specific probiotics alone or in combination with prebiotic fibers for managing type 2 diabetes.
Nevertheless, One take-home tip that is effective and safe for controlling blood sugar is to increase the number and variety of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and nuts in your diet..
In this interview on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of GMFH, Dr Stephane SchneiderProfessor of Nutrition, Gastroenterologist and Researcher at the Université Côte d’Azur and the University Hospital of Nice, tells us a little more about the connection between the gut microbiome and type 2 diabetes and how we can harness our internal community of bacteria to prevent or better control type 2 diabetes.
Have you seen our previous interviews with experts? If not, make sure you don’t miss them!
Stay tuned for upcoming video interviews with members of the GMFH Expert Board, and don’t forget to join the conversation on Twitter (Twitter @GMFHx, Twitter @GutmicrobiotaWW) using #GMFH10 years.
Source: news.google.com