WIKIPEDIA, ASHDiabetics who use the commonly prescribed drug metformin to control blood sugar levels have a different composition of gut microbiota than other diabetics, according to a study published in Nature last week (December 2). The findings suggest metformin may have beneficial impacts on users’ bacterial symbionts.
“We weren’t able to show that other types of antidiabetic drugs had any actual impact on the gut microbiota,” senior study author Oluf Borbye Pedersen of the University of Copenhagen said in a press release. “When studying type 2 diabetes patients not being treated with metformin, we did, however, discover that they—irrespective of whether they were from Denmark, China or Sweden—had fewer of the bacteria which produce the health-promoting short-chain fatty acids.”
Pedersen and his colleagues studied the microbial assemblages present in the guts of 784 people. Diabetics who weren’t taking metformin had different bacteria from nondiabetics and diabetics who were taking metformin. Those who were taking the medication had a greater abundance of E. coli and lower levels of Intestinibacter.
The authors suppose these ...
