Slashdot Mirror
Gut Bacteria Can Control Diabetes
Shipud writes "Insulin resistance is the harbinger of metabolic syndrome. Insulin resistance is when the body cannot use insulin effectively. As a result, blood sugar and fat levels rise. Therein lies the path to morbid obesity, diabetes, stroke, and heart problems. A group of Brazilian researchers have taken a strain of mice normally known to be immune to insulin resistance, and made them insulin resistant (pre-diabetic) by changing their gut bacteria. They then gave the mice antibiotics, and by changing their gut bacteria again, reversed the process, curing them of the disease. Their research shows just how influential the bacteria living in our gut can be on our health."
Two problems. First, I imagine there are a variety of causes of diabetes. Changing gut bacteria need not help. Second, you need also to replace the gut bacteria with something better or the reset will just result in the old bacteria coming back.
As a pre-diabetic myself I'm wondering if this will need to be FDA approved?
I mean aren't active yeast cultures okay in non-FDA approved yogurt? Since these are (I presume) non-pathogenic bacteria, couldn't they also be made available over the counter in pill form (packaged as dried spores?).
I guess you'd still need a prescription for the anti-biotics to clear out the existing flora in your gut though.
Of many animals both available in abundance and ones that people don't feel too bad about possibly killing, mice and pigs share enough DNA and inner workings to make them both adequate test subjects. Animal testing works very well for many drugs, though of course we won't know how it will exactly react with people just as reactions will differ from person to person. Unlike animals, we interact with other drugs, activities, eating habits, and existing conditions.
But I'm sure people with Diabetes are happier with your "[make] sure you are hungry" remedy. /sarcasm
Just out of curiosity, are you also an antivaxxer? Psuedo-science is not "like" science. It is the opposite of real science.
I8-D
It's a common oversight in reporting about Diabetes not to recognize that there are two separate diseases with the same name. Type I ("One") Diabetes, also called Juvenile Diabetes, is caused largely by genetics and some unknown environmental factors. It is an auto-immune disease in which the immune system attacks the pancreas, causing the body to produce no more insulin. It's the type that requires insulin injections multiple times per day as well as constant monitoring.
Type II ("Two", Adult) Diabetes is caused by genetics in combination with unhealthy lifestyle habits such as unhealthy diets. It's triggered when the body forms a resistance to insulin, normally due to its high concentration in the body resulting from unhealthy eating. It can often be managed by improving diet and/or oral medication, though in some cases it requires insulin injections.
Both diseases result in high blood sugars, and thus the same symptoms, which is why they share a name.
As a Type I Diabetic, it's frustrating when people assume I had an unhealthy childhood or poor eating habits as a young adult due to shoddy reporting that conflates the two diseases due to their horrible naming. I remember there being some call to rename one of the diseases to help avoid this confusion. But I can't seem to find a reference on the Wikipedia articles.
When discussing Diabetes in the future, please be careful to specify which type you are referring to as they are really separate diseases.
Actually, you can transplant human gut bacteria to treat disease. It's called Fecal Bacteriotherapy. It's a procedure carried out under the supervision of a doctor where you put a donor's shit up your ass. Unappealing certainly, but at least it's not 2girls1cup style.
What came first? The chicken or the egg? You see it as lifestyle choices but may not realize that the life style is being impacted metabolically behind the scenes. A person may act like a slug because they don't have energy. Its a cycle and it's hard to change. I'm a diabetic. But I exercise and eat fairly well. But when I was younger all I did was crave sugar constantly. 2/3's of my family tree going back 3 generations is diabetic. I don't think it's quite so cut and dry. To play devil's advocate, yes eating good and exercising will help tons! But it just doesn't always change the WHY of it happening.
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
No, what they discovered is actually a flaw in existing research into insulin resistance. To summarize the linked article: There is a strain of mice that did not develop insulin resistance from any of the usual procedures used to induce insulin resistance in mice. This particular group of researchers noticed that these diabetes resistant mice were typically housed in isolation from normal mouse micro-organisms. These researchers housed a group of these mice in "conventional facilities" (as opposed to "germ-free" facilities, which was normal) where they were exposed to various bacteria. These mice then developed insulin resistance. When the gut bacteria from these mice were transplanted into other mice, those mice, also, developed the symptoms of insulin resistance. Finally, if these mice were given broad spectrum antibiotics (presumably killing off the microbiota that had developed in their guts) they lost their insulin resistance.
In summation, what they discovered is that the micro-organisms that live in your intestines play a role in whether or not you develop Type 2 diabetes.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Part of the problem is that so many people have been taught that "eating well" means avoiding saturated fat and eating lots of grains and vegetable oil, despite the evidence that such a diet has the exact opposite effect of what is claimed. Once you figure out that eating well means almost the complete opposite of what the government-sponsored experts have been telling us for the last 30 years it becomes very easy to reverse the process.
I've read about similar results from fecal transplants to replace colon flora. If I understand it correctly, there are actually doctors that will "reset" your colon flora by giving you a high dose of antibiotics and then basically stick someone else's poop up your butt. I'm sure it's more scientific than that, but it supposedly repopulates your colon with different flora and the people that have undergone the procedure swear it made them lose weight or recover from other problems, etc.
Wired wrote about it too, but I haven't read that specific article yet: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/fecal-transplants-work/
in Soviet Russia people like you would be sent to concentration camp for posting this shit constantly
Conversely, I could also never reach 150 lbs without resorting to amputation. There is simply a range that my body is genetically capable of achieving. The same applies to everyone else.
I've seen and experienced for myself far too many success stories with low carb/primal eating to take claims like that at face value. My personal experience corresponds to Mark Sisson's claim that diet is 80% of what determines your body composition.
You already can. http://www.wholehealth.com/health-articles/probiotics-may-have-role-in-and-diabetes-management.
The natural medicine practitioners that so many folks on Slashdot seem to bash and ignore have been aware of the connection between L. acidophilus and a number of medical conditions for several years. It has just taken this long for the medical community to be sufficiently convinced that they were right through the use of double-blind studies.
Acidophilus pills are available at pretty much every pharmacy and health food store (at least in the U.S.), from CVS and Walgreens to that weird place on the corner that smells kind of like incense, but not quite. I think if I had diabetes, I'd certainly be tempted to give it a shot. In the worst case, it doesn't help your particular form of diabetes, and you wasted a few dollars for a bottle.
Consuming L. acidophilus is also known to reduce serum cholesterol, reduce lactose intolerance in many people (because it produces some of the enzymes that break down lactose), and reduce the incidence of diarrhea in many situations by crowding out the bad bacteria that cause it. Frankly, it's about as close as you can get to a miracle drug, at least when it comes to digestive health, and it's available over the counter for just a few bucks per bottle. And because each pill contains living bacteria that multiply on their own, you don't necessarily need to keep taking it, unlike drugs.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Maybe it's just me but the obvious question would seem to be: what causes insulin resistance in the first place?
Voltage(insulin) / Current(insulin) ??
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The healthiest people have the widest range of bacterial flora, usually established as a child and turn into a life long symbiotic relationship. A tablet could never cover the full range of bacteria for an optimal flora.
Another fun fact: Guess how gut flora are "seeded" in humans? Hint: It's more effective with natural childbirth.
Breakfast served all day!
I lost 50 lbs by eliminating sugar, starches and grains (and byproducts) and replacing those with saturated fats, green vegetables and meat without even bothering to think about calories and without spending nearly every waking moment exercising. The primal/paleo diets work for a lot of people, far more than are able to make a low-calorie, low-fat diet work for any substantial period of time.
Google fecal transplant. It's a real thing.
And I thought Google Wave was a bad idea. I don't care how many invites I get, I'm not trying Google Fecal Transplant.
Like almost all of the "natural" remedies, it didn't work at all. I've heard the same story from 3 other people. I wouldn't be surprised if the only people that reported it to work weren't just experiencing the placebo effect. Double blind studies seem to confirm that it doesn't help at all for cholesterol: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15841092
My prescription medicine for IBS started out as a "natural" medicine made from a plant, except that it works and is now western medicine instead of alternative medicine.
If you have diabetes, you should consult your doctor before you go experimenting with natural remedies. Some of them, like St. John's Wort, can interfere with the action of the medication that's actually doing something. "Natural" substances aren't inherently safe.
Here's a link via scientific american
http://io9.com/5872507/the-appendix-might-actually-be-the-bodys-bacteria-storehouse
Google "appendix gut bacteria" and there are loads of articles even from 3-4 years back.
They would pretty much have to be administered by snaking a tube up there a good 2-3 feet. Which need not be such a horrifying thought..
I disagree. This needs to remain a horrifying thought.