Dietary sugar affects the gut flora which leads to metabolic illness.

According to a new mouse study, dietary sugar affects the gut flora, triggering a series of events that result in metabolic illness, pre-diabetes, and weight gain. The results indicate that although nutrition is vital for the prevention of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and obesity, a healthy microbiome is also crucial. 

The mice displayed signs of metabolic syndrome, such as weight gain, insulin resistance, and glucose intolerance, after four weeks on a high-fat, high-sugar diet. Additionally, their microbiomes have undergone significant alteration, with other bacteria becoming more prevalent and the proportion of segmented filamentous bacteria significantly declining. Segmented filamentous bacteria are special immune-modulating bacteria that colonize the small intestine of various animals in a host-specific way.  The decline in the filamentous bacteria caused the protective Th17 cells to vanish. Th17 cells are a subset of T helper cells that are protective against metabolic syndrome.

Even though they consumed the same number of calories, mice on a sugar-free, high-fat diet retained their intestinal Th17 cells and were totally prevented from acquiring obesity and pre-diabetes. But not all mice benefited from the no-sugar diet. Individuals without any filamentous bacteria to begin with gained weight and acquired diabetes. Supplementation of filamentous bacteria resulted in the recovery of Th17 cells and protection against metabolic syndrome.

People do not have the same filamentous bacteria as mice, but we do have other bacteria that promote the production of Th17 cells. In humans, Bifidobacterium adolescentis is associated with inducing the production of Th17 cells.

The study underscores that the emergence of obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and other illnesses is significantly influenced by a complex interplay between nutrition, microbiota, and the immune system. It shows that improving your microbiome, such as by boosting Th17 cell-inducing bacteria, is crucial for optimum health in addition to changing your diet.

How intestinal microbes regulate metabolic syndrome is incompletely understood. We show that intestinal microbiota protects against development of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and pre-diabetic phenotypes by inducing commensal-specific Th17 cells. High-fat, high-sugar diet promoted metabolic disease by depleting Th17-inducing microbes, and recovery of commensal Th17 cells restored protection. Microbiota-induced Th17 cells afforded protection by regulating lipid absorption across intestinal epithelium in an IL-17-dependent manner. Diet-induced loss of protective Th17 cells was mediated by the presence of sugar. Eliminating sugar from high-fat diets protected mice from obesity and metabolic syndrome in a manner dependent on commensal-specific Th17 cells. Sugar and ILC3 promoted outgrowth of Faecalibaculum rodentium that displaced Th17-inducing microbiota. These results define dietary and microbiota factors posing risk for metabolic syndrome. They also define a microbiota-dependent mechanism for immuno-pathogenicity of dietary sugar and highlight an elaborate interaction between diet, microbiota, and intestinal immunity in regulation of metabolic disorders.

Link to the full study (PDF) Microbiota imbalance induced by dietary sugar disrupts immune-mediated protection from metabolic syndrome
August 2022 Cell DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2022.08.005

a reply to: tamusan

Fascinating read and concept. I look forward to seeing the evolution of our understand of the microbiome and it's impact on health.

a reply to: tamusan

I love reading all the stuff on the microbiome.

There are studies showing fiber (massively missing from the US diet) has good gut bacteria.

I think about different cultures and their relationship with sugar. For example, my mom being Asian, they absolutely abhor sugar. They love salt salt salt. Growing up sugar was just not a part of my moms diet, so much so that as an adult in the US she still couldn’t get over the over sweetness. Things are rapidly changing in Asia and obesity and sickness is following!

a reply to: tamusan
Is it only Bifidobacterium adolescentis that is effective?

My multi-probiotic has several Bifidobacterium, but not that one.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Another human gut bacteria that is associated with inducing the production of Th17 cells is Bifidobacterium bifidum. I should have added that the Th17 cells produce interleukin-17. There are many species of Bifidobacterium, each supporting the production of different interleukins. 

I also should have added to the OP that around 1000 different kinds of bacteria have been found in the human digestive tract. The beneficial ones work together to modulate a healthy metabolism and strengthen the immune system. Too much or too little of any key bacteria will have undesirable effects. For example, producing too many Th17 cells can trigger autoimmune inflammatory diseases. 

You are approaching it right by using a probiotic that has multiple kinds of bacteria. That should help keep things in balance. You've probably heard of prebiotics before. Prebiotics help grow the microbes already in your digestive tract. There is not really a need to take a supplement for that if you are eating the right things. Foods like apples, bananas, berries, carrots, flax seed, garlic, oats, and sweet potatoes are among those that are prebiotic. 

We do still have a lot to learn about what constitutes a perfectly healthy gut microbiome. 

a reply to: InwardDiver
a reply to: JAGStorm

Both of the studies that I made threads about today are in the most recent issue of the journal "Cell." I believe that several more studies will be published this year. There is still a lot to work out about our gut microflora.

Yes, the right kinds of fiber are important for regulating gut bacteria. Fiber works more as a prebiotic to feed the bacteria already in our digestive tract than to introduce bacteria. I added something about prebiotics in my reply to DTOM. 

My wife has a slight sweet tooth, despite being Asian. She likes things such as cake, cookies, pies, and sweet iced tea, I do not often buy sweet stuff, so that helps her not to eat too much. I'll occasionally make her cake, cookies, or pies, and I'll add only 1/4 of the sugar called for in the recipe. I also make her sweet tea that has just a little raw sugar added.

I hate when an article just has the summary like this and you have to pay for the whole access to the research. I like reading the research to see if it matches the conclusions we see and analyze the full article to try to figure out why things are happening. One article has led me to read multiple researches that both back and oppose the findings to try to figure out what is going on and simplify it so I can pass on what I have learned.

I guess in a few years there will be a lot more free access to government funded research. There is a lot of scam work going on to take this research away from the public over the last two years or so. They want people to believe in the big government health agencies interpretations and the pharma companies buy up research utilizing agencies that then charge lots which then tends to suppress information so people can not get sick so they do not need meds.

Our medical industry has become a corrupt for profit business, especially in America. And the funny part of it is that many doctors and health care workers cannot fathom this is happening, they think they are helping people and that diet and natural solutions are not real. They do not want to believe that people running the show in their line of work are deceiving the public to make them dependent on them. The government who controls this also wants people to believe they are doing a good thing, when in fact their main intent is to make us believe their health agencies are looking out for us.

There are a lot of good doctors out there, but there are many also that are just trying to get us to fund their paychecks and the paychecks of the people working in the industry. Doctors working for hospitals know that the hospitals need money to exist, and they push unnecessary tests and prescribe pills when simple dietary changes could make things a little better, suppressing the disease from developing till past when their life is over. This has been going on for many decades, but it is getting worse every decade.

originally posted by: tamusan
a reply to: InwardDiver
a reply to: JAGStorm

Both of the studies that I made threads about today are in the most recent issue of the journal "Cell." I believe that several more studies will be published this year. There is still a lot to work out about our gut microflora.

Yes, the right kinds of fiber are important for regulating gut bacteria. Fiber works more as a prebiotic to feed the bacteria already in our digestive tract than to introduce bacteria. I added something about prebiotics in my reply to DTOM. 

My wife has a slight sweet tooth, despite being Asian. She likes things such as cake, cookies, pies, and sweet iced tea, I do not often buy sweet stuff, so that helps her not to eat too much. I'll occasionally make her cake, cookies, or pies, and I'll add only 1/4 of the sugar called for in the recipe. I also make her sweet tea that has just a little raw sugar added.

There are so many chemistries sprayed on our foods to extend shelf life that kill microbes, it is hard to keep the balance. The people who grow and ship and sell food cannot afford to lose money, it is a problem with selling foods that are shipped too far and too much selection. If a store has to have ten types of lettuces or salad mixtures, there needs to be more chemicals on them to keep them fresh looking longer, antimicrobials and antioxidants that can effect the absorption and the digestion negatively. If everyone just had a choice of a few lettuces or like spinaches, there would be less wasted fresh products because rotation would be faster and stuff would get to market quicker with less chemicals added since everyone would be eating the same thing. It is hard to fix this problem, people do not even want to peel leaves off a head of lettuce anymore and mix things together, we have a totally entitled society these days.

a reply to: rickymouse

I thought that the link would open to a PDF of the full study for everyone. Try this link and let me know if you can read the entire study or not: Microbiota imbalance induced by dietary sugar disrupts immune-mediated protection from metabolic syndrome

a reply to: tamusan

Yeah, that link worked for the full text. It's too late to start reading it and looking up all the definitions of the specific processes and precise chemicals and microbes involved in this tonight, I will do that tomorrow, I have to be up for seven tomorrow AM because the great grand kids are coming here when my grandsoninlaw goes to work. After the girl catches the bus here for kindergarden, we only got the two year old boy is here, and he isn't so bad when he isn't wound up by the granddaughter. The wife can manage him, but I change the diapers, she doesn't think she should be changing diapers at seventy years old anymore.

a reply to: rickymouse

Keep in mind when you do start looking things up that you are going to see many negative associations and they are generally going to be in the context of too little or too much of something. These studies are written for those who have already absorbed all of the other related studies and often lack that context. 

originally posted by: tamusan
a reply to: rickymouse

Keep in mind when you do start looking things up that you are going to see many negative associations and they are generally going to be in the context of too little or too much of something. These studies are written for those who have already absorbed all of the past studies and often lack that context. 

Yeah, know that already, it is important to distinguish which way that the statements by specialists apply. The professionals in this stuff tend to generalize and not clarify things properly because people in the same field are the target observers, so they are talking to others who have the same mindset. Interpreters who summarize the stuff sometimes get it wrong too, I try to double and triple check. Made my mistakes reading research over twelve years ago when I learned that this was happening. It isn't simple to properly assess scientific research, people often get things backwards.

I have to identify the actions of enzymes effected which some are created by microbes to research how to stop this from happening...Done a lot of that already, it is time consuming and requires a lot of reading.

I took twenty six medical classes online to try to figure how to talk to other medical people, and I learned that since I had learned differently than what they trained people to learn, I was able to think out of the box and find chemistries in foods and herbs that could work like meds....which I learned how to do a lot faster over the years knowing where to look. Assessing bioavailability is not bad because lots of research has been done now on natural properties of food chemistry and medicinal properties of supplements from these natural chemistries. I actually enjoy hacking pharma meds to find natural sources of chemistry that will work. I sort of get a high from learning, but I am a little nuts that way, I always liked learning.

Fifteen years into researching this stuff now, and if I averaged all that time into fourty hours a week, I would have probably fifteen full years of studying this...five days a week, fifty two weeks a year. And I still have a long way to go because there are so many chemistries in foods and the environment that are being consumed or breathed in or absorbed through our skin.

One good thing, along with this research I also study chemicals used in food development and diet of animals and chemicals used on plants and how those chemicals change the plant defense chemicals and nutritional value of foods. Plus, I learned to make some pretty good foods, with medical properties for fighting some things and learned companion foods and timing of certain foods to block progression of hereditary or metabolic diseases.

I must be nuts because this is fun for me learning all of this and testing these things on myself. All food is psychoactive, all food has positive and negative properties, and specific preparation along with proper companion chemistry can fix a lot of metabolic issues. I am attempting to interpret moderation in diet and many foods share similar properties even they appear to be way different. The medical industry is trying to treat symptoms with medicines, I am trying to stop people from needing meds.

a reply to: rickymouse

There are two kinds of medical doctors, and this goes for veterinarians as well. One kind sticks with what they learned from medical school, rarely reads new studies, and generally adopts new medications without gaining a full understanding of how they work. The other kind, like me, subscribe to many journals to keep up with current research and generally have a good understanding of how a new drug works before it even hits clinical trials. I guess that many VA doctors can fall into a third category, and that is to downplay anything that might be service connected and try to muddy the waters enough to sink a claim. 

I've been lucky enough to have found doctors who will be my personal physicians and who value nutrition as medicine in the same way I do.

I don't think you are nuts for studying so much. It seems to me that you've found something that you enjoy doing, and it's also something that helps you take greater control of your health. Keep in mind that doctors generally do not treat themselves or members of their own family.

Thanks so much for this thread - especially the link to the pdf. of the study!!

I am trying to get my husband to cut down on sugar, white flour, and processed foods - he is 61 yrs. old and thinks he can eat like a twenty-something!

I had problems with 'yoyo dieting', weight loss, & rebound weight gain from my late teens to my late forties...It was only when I started limiting 'white' carbs (sugar, flour, etc) that I was able to get off that cycle.

And it's really not that hard, even if you have a sweet tooth (which I do)...because now days, there are some really good sources of recipes (and even a few convenience foods, protein bars & such) which use combinations of natural sugars and erythritol...
The hardest thing for me, as I live in Florida and am always too hot, is finding a good brand of low sugar ice cream..

Anyway, I'm grateful for the information in the OP, as my hubby never takes my word for anything!

a reply to: lostgirl

Thank you for the thank you! If any of my threads help just one person find better health, then it was worthwhile for me to make them. I hope your husband is able to cut down on the sugar. It is a real challenge for most people to do.

a reply to: tamusan

Thanks for that info.
I'll check to see if there is any Bifidobacterium bifidum in the product I use.

I also take arabinogalactan as a prebiotic. But I am not entirely sure if it is best taken with the probiotic or separately.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

I think it's fine to take them at the same time.