Our digestive system is like a bustling city, home to around 100 trillion tiny creatures like bacteria, viruses, fungi, and more.
This diverse community, known as the gut microbiota, does a lot for us. They help digest food, protect us from harmful invaders, and even play a part in how our medicines work.
But like any city, if something goes out of balance, it can cause problems. This is what Bo Wang, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, and his team set out to understand in a recent study.
Leaky Gut and Its Possible Side Effects
You might’ve heard of ‘leaky gut syndrome’. Imagine our intestines as pipes. Normally, these pipes are pretty selective about what they let through. But in leaky gut, the pipes get a bit too porous, letting out water and nutrients.
This might lead to swelling and shifts in our gut’s normal bacteria balance, potentially causing issues in our digestive system.
Bo Wang’s research dove into the role of tiny molecules in our body (metabolites) and how they interact. Using mice as subjects,
Wang’s team compared the metabolites of obese or diabetic mice with those of healthy ones. The big discovery? The gut of obese humans and mice had a buildup of a substance called ethanolamine.
Now, ethanolamine is usually found in our gut. But in large amounts, it might lead to leaky gut syndrome, swelling, and even issues with how our body uses sugar, according to the study.
And here’s an interesting twist: even just two weeks of a meat-heavy diet seemed to increase this ethanolamine buildup in mice.
A Probiotic Solution?
The answer might be in the form of good bacteria. Wang’s team tried a strategy: what if they added some beneficial bacteria to the gut to help balance things out?
Using lactobacillus rhamnosus, a friendly resident of our gut that we can also take as a supplement, they managed to reverse some of the leaky gut symptoms and improve how the body managed sugar.
Think of this like adding more police officers to our ‘gut city’ to bring order. “This probiotic therapy, they actually add some good bacteria inside of the guts,” Wang explained.
By doing this, the aim was to restore balance and see if it could help reduce issues like diabetes and obesity in the mice.
While the study was primarily on mice, Wang believes it shines a light on the critical role our gut plays in health issues like diabetes, obesity, and even Alzheimer’s disease.
In fact, Wang and his team are now diving into research to see how our gut bacteria might be linked to Alzheimer’s, building on previous studies.
In conclusion, our gut health might be a central piece of the puzzle in understanding and tackling several health issues.
So, the next time you think about your health, remember the bustling ‘city’ within and how crucial its balance is for our well-being.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies about a big cause of nerve damage in people with diabetes and High blood pressure drug may protect kidneys from damage in diabetes.
For more information about diabetes, please see recent studies about the normal blood sugar for people with diabetes, results showing that Zinc may be the key to better diabetes treatments.
The study was published in Gut.
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