Intestinal microbes produce d-lactate that impairs metabolism. A “bait” to capture healthy levels of blood sugar and improves liver function.
A team of Canadian researchers identified an unexpected way to reduce blood sugar and protect the liver: fuel Little known, produced by intestinal bacteria, before it enters the body and causing damage.
The conclusions of the, presented in an article recently published in the Cell Metabolismthey can make their way to new therapies to treat metabolic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and fat liver disease.
The team of scientists, McMaster University, Université Laval and University of Ottawa, found that a molecule generated by intestinal microbes he can cross to the bloodstreamwhere it leads the liver to produce in excess glucose and fat.
When creating a Method to imprison this molecule in the gut before reaching circulation, they obtained Significant improvements in blood glucose regulation and in fat liver disease in obese rats.
“It is a new perspective on a classic metabolic pathway,” says the teacher Jonathan shoesinvestigator of McMaster and corresponding author of the study, quoted by.
“For almost a century ago we know that muscles and liver exchange lactate and glucose – a process called Ciclo de Cori. What we discover now is a new branch of this cycle, in which intestinal bacteria also enter In the conversation ”, details the researcher
Em 1947, Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Theresa Cori received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for demonstrating how Lactate generated by the muscles feeds the liver to produce blood glucosewhich then circulates again to support muscle activity.
His work has established the foundations to understand how muscles use a form of lactate (L-lactato) and how the liver uses blood glucose in a highly coordinated fuel exchange.
The Canadian team has now shown that obese rats – and even humans with obesity – have high levels of a different moleculeor d-lactate, no blood.
Unlike the lactate, produced by the muscles and well studied, the d-lactate has origin above all in intestinal bacteria and was associated with a more pronounced increase in the blood sugar and liver fat.
To counteract this effect, the authors of the study created what they designate a “intestinal substrate trap”-A secure and biodegradable polymer that binds to the gut in the gut and prevents its absorption.
The rats that received the trap showed lower levels of glucose in the blood, lower insulin resistance and reduction of inflammation and liver fibrosis – all without altering diet or body weight.
“It’s a completely new way of thinking the treatment of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and fat liver disease. Instead of directly aiming at the hormones or the liver, We are intercepting a source of microbial fuel before it can cause damage, ”concludes Schertzer.
