A Kobe College staff discovered that glucose is excreted into the small gut, the place micro organism rework it into short-chain fatty acids. Credit score: Kobe College
Intestine microbes that have been thought to feed completely on dietary fiber additionally get fed sugar from our guts, from which they produce short-chain fatty acids which are essential to many physique capabilities. The Kobe College discovery of this symbiotic relationship additionally factors the best way to creating novel therapeutics.
The staff have printed their ends in the journal Communications Medication.
Intestine microbes produce many substances that our physique wants however can’t produce itself. Amongst them are short-chain fatty acids which are the first power supply for the cells lining our guts however produce other vital roles, too, and which are regarded as produced by micro organism who feed on undigested fiber.
Nonetheless, in a earlier research, the Kobe College endocrinologist Ogawa Wataru discovered that individuals who take the diabetes drug metformin excrete the sugar glucose to the within of their guts. He says, “If glucose is indeed excreted into the gut, it is conceivable that this could affect the symbiotic relationship between the gut microbiome and the host.”
Ogawa and his staff got down to be taught extra concerning the particulars of glucose excretion and its relationship with the intestine microbiota. “We had to develop unprecedented bioimaging methods and establish novel analytical techniques for the products of the gut microbial metabolism,” he says.
They used their new strategies to not solely see the place and the way a lot glucose enters the center, but in addition used mouse experiments to learn the way the sugar is reworked after that. As well as, additionally they checked how the diabetes drug metformin influences these outcomes each in people and in mice.
This time lapse footage exhibits that glucose is excreted within the “jejunum,” part of the small gut, and is transported from there contained in the intestine to the big gut and the rectum. Credit score: Morita Yasuko, Communications Medication 2025 (DOI: 10.1038/s43856-025-00755-4)
The staff discovered that, first, glucose is excreted within the “jejunum,” part of the small gut, and is transported from there contained in the intestine to the big gut and the rectum.
“It was surprising to find that even individuals not taking metformin exhibited a certain level of glucose excretion into the intestine. This finding suggests that intestinal glucose excretion is a universal physiological phenomenon in animals, with metformin acting to enhance this process,” Ogawa explains.
In each people and mice, regardless of whether or not they have been diabetic or not, metformin elevated the excretion by an element of virtually 4.
And second, on the best way down, the glucose will get reworked into short-chain fatty acids. Ogawa says, “The production of short-chain fatty acids from the excreted glucose is a huge discovery. While these compounds are traditionally thought to be produced through the fermentation of indigestible dietary fibers by gut microbiota, this newly identified mechanism highlights a novel symbiotic relationship between the host and its microbiota.”
Ogawa and his staff at the moment are conducting additional research with the goal of understanding how metformin and different diabetes medicine have an effect on glucose excretion, the intestine microbiome and their metabolic merchandise.
He says, “Intestinal glucose excretion represents a previously unrecognized physiological phenomenon. Understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms and how drugs interfere with this process could lead to the development of novel therapeutics aimed at the regulation of gut microbiota and their metabolites.”
Extra info:
Metformin-regulated glucose flux from the circulation to the intestinal lumen, Communications Medication (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s43856-025-00755-4
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Kobe College
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Intestine microbes that convert sugar into very important short-chain fatty acids level the best way to novel therapeutics (2025, March 3)
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