Is Type 1 diabetes linked to gut bacteria?

[Michel]

This interesting research from Joslin research center on mice shows strong links between the two. What I like most abt this research direction is that they are already jumping from mice to men:

Type 1 Diabetes Risk May Come Down to Gut Bacteria Counts | Insulin Nation

Diabetes researchers have long noticed that labs have different rates of success breeding mice to have the equivalent of Type 1 diabetes. At first, many scientists attributed this to poor management of genetic drift in some labs, but this theory didn’t hold up. If you transferred a group of mice from a lab with a lower rate of diabetes to a lab with a higher rate, the transferred group would soon exhibit the same rate of diabetes found in the new surroundings.

It is intriguing to compare this paper to another one on T2 diabetes that we quoted recently:

Intestinal bacteria may protect against Type 2 diabetes

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170411090159.htm In this study in Finland, a higher proportion of people with impaired glucose tolerance who do not develop T2 diabetes carry a higher amount of indolepropionic acid. “Indolepropionic acid is a metabolite produced by intestinal bacteria, and its production is boosted by a fibre-rich diet.”

[docslotnick]

I think this apparent contradiction demonstrates how little we really know.

[Michel]

It’ s interesting to me that both types are linked to gut bacteria, somehow. The human part of the research is happening in Finland in both cases – a part of the world with very high incidence of diabetes.