A recent study involving members of the International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk, Drs. André Tchernof and André Marette, was recently published in Nature Metabolism. The investigators found that bacteria could be involved in the development of type2 diabetes.
In the study, which involved 40 individuals with severe obesity, a different bacterial signature was found among individuals with diabetes compared to those with normoglycemia but who were nevertheless insulin resistant. Moreover, their results revealed tissue-specific bacterial compartments with different levels of specific bacteria in the liver and omental adipose tissue of people with diabetes compared to nondiabetic controls. Considering that these two important organs are critically involved in the regulation of blood glucose homeostasis, these observations may contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in the development of type 2 diabetes.
The next steps will be to determine whether bacteria found in the liver and the adipose tissue are also observed in overweight and moderately obese individuals. The investigators also want to examine whether some bacteria found in tissues can cause type 2 diabetes in an animal model. Another objective will be to examine whether certain bacteria could be targeted to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.