Healthy gut microbiota can help reduce metabolic syndrome risks

A new study has revealed that healthy gut microbiota can help prevent metabolic syndrome, which is a combination of factors that increases risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke in people.

Dr. Andrew Gewirtz, a professor in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State said that developing a means to promote a healthier microbiota can treat or prevent metabolic disease and they confirm the concept that altered microbiota can promote low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome and advance the underlying mechanism.

Gut microbiota performs key functions in health and when it becomes dysregulated it can promote chronic inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. In addition, altered gut microbiota promotes inflammation that leads to metabolic syndrome.

Normally, the bacteria are in the mucous layer at a certain distance away from epithelial cells. The researchers showed altered gut microbiota was more aggressive in infiltrating the host and gets very close to the epithelium. This altered population produces flagellin and lipopolysaccharide, which further promote inflammation.

Gewirtz further mentioned that they have filled in a lot of the details about how it works; it's the loss of TLR5 on the epithelium, the cells that line the surface of the intestine and their ability to quickly respond to bacteria and that ability goes away and results in a more aggressive bacterial population that gets closer in and produces substances that drive inflammation.

The study is published in the journal Gastroenterology.