Study Reveals Gut Microbes May Link Sugary Drinks to Increased Diabetes Risk - Video

In a paper published in the Cell Press Journal Cell Metabolism, researchers showed that metabolites produced by gut microbes might play a role in the mechanism by which sugary drinks cause diabetes. In a long-term cohort of US Hispanic/Latino adults, the researchers identified differences in the gut microbiota and blood metabolites of individuals with a high intake of sugar-sweetened beverages.

The team used data from an ongoing large-scale cohort study with data from over 16,000 participants. At an initial visit, participants were asked to recall their diet from the past 24 hours and had blood drawn to characterize their serum metabolites. The researchers collected fecal samples and characterized the gut microbiomes of a subset of the participants (n = 3,035) at a follow-up visit and used these data to identify association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake, gut microbiome

composition, and serum metabolites.

They found that high sugary beverage intake -- defined as two or more sugary beverages per day -- was associated with changes in the abundance of nine species of bacteria. Four of these species are known to produce short-chain fatty acids -- molecules that are produced when bacteria digest fiber and that are known to positively impact glucose metabolism.

The researchers also found associations between sugary beverage consumption and 56 serum metabolites, including several metabolites that are produced by gut microbiota or are derivatives of gut-microbiota-produced metabolites. These sugar-associated metabolites were associated with worse metabolic traits, including higher levels of fasting blood glucose and insulin, higher BMIs and waist-to-hip ratios, and lower levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ("good" cholesterol). Notably, individuals with higher levels of these metabolites had a higher likelihood of developing diabetes in the 10 years following their initial visit.

"We found that several microbiota-related metabolites are associated with the risk of diabetes," says senior author Qibin Qi, an epidemiologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "In other words, these metabolites may predict future diabetes."

"In the future, we want to test whether the bacteria and metabolites can mediate or at least partially mediate the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and risk of diabetes," says Qi.

Reference: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake, gut microbiota, circulating metabolites, and diabetes risk in Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos, Zhang, Yanbo et al. Cell Metabolism, Volume 0, Issue 0