Millions of people around the world experience serious blood sugar problems which can cause diabetes.
In a new study, researchers found how gut bacteria impact the normally feel-good hormone serotonin to negatively influence blood sugar levels.
The research was conducted by a team from Flinders, SAHMRI, and McMaster University in Canada.
Serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain, is nicknamed the ‘happy hormone’ and is normally linked with regulating sleep, well-being, and metabolism.
But the gut actually produces 95% of it, and not in the happy form as we know about in the brain.
In the study, the team showed exactly how the gut microbiome communicates with cells producing serotonin to influence blood sugar levels in the host body.
They found that the gut microbiome worsens the metabolism by signaling to cells in the gut that produce serotonin.
They drive up serotonin levels, which the team previously showed to be increased in obese humans, and this rise in blood serotonin causes significant metabolic problems.
This study sheds light on the unanswered question about exactly how bacteria in the microbiome communicate to control glucose levels in the metabolism.
The next step will be to understand exactly which bacteria do this, and how, in the hope that this could lead to new approaches to regulating blood sugar levels in humans.
This study is the first to show how the microbiome, the bacteria that live in the gut, effectively communicates with an organism to impact the host’s metabolism.
If researchers can better understand which bacteria cause the signals to produce serotonin in the gut, treatments could one day be developed to reduce blood sugar levels, and this is the first step towards better understanding this process.
The lead author of the study is Professor Damien Keating, Head of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Flinders University.
The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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