Sounds easy, right?
The best part is that it’s totally natural, too.
Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are the results of faulty insulin. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas all but stops producing insulin altogether. This leaves the body with a surplus of glucose in the blood and no way to metabolize it.
Type 2 diabetes can also be due to a sluggish production of insulin or increased resistance to insulin.
Well, it seems like scientists have found a way to bypass the pancreas thank you very much to prompt the body to release insulin in another, more creative way.
This is all thanks to bacteria.
Yup, bacteria can help reverse diabetes.
Our gut is naturally full of all kinds of bacteria, and this is a good thing. It helps us digest our food, metabolize energy, and even regulate emotions.
One strain of bacteria, in particular, Lactobacillus, is particularly beneficial to the gut.
This probiotic does a whole host of things for the body, but what researchers were particularly interested in was how it might influence insulin production.
The bacteria secretes a peptide, which is a hormone that releases insulin in response to eating, and so they thought that maybe they could use this characteristic to their advantage in a quest to cure diabetes.
They gave a probiotic pill to a group of diabetic rats for 90 days and observed the effects on blood glucose.
They were excited to find that glucose levels in these rats were up to 30% lower than in diabetic rats that didn’t get the probiotic pill.
What’s even more exciting, though, was that the cells in the upper part of the intestines behaved similarly to beta cells in the pancreas.
Meaning, they produced insulin, too.
It was so effective at mimicking the pancreas that the glucose metabolism rates in these rats were similar to those in regular non-diabetic rats.
The authors of the study were not surprised. Probiotics are already medically approved as natural treatment plans to intestinal problems such as diarrhea, Crohn’s disease, and irritable bowel syndrome. So why wouldn’t it be helpful for more diseases, like diabetes?
This friendly bacteria doesn’t just come in pill form, either. It can be found in raw fermented foods, such a yogurt, sauerkraut, and pickles (not the mass produced, pasteurized-to-death kind) as well!
Of course, check with your doctor before ditching your medication for probiotics. But also consider adding a regular probiotic supplement to your diet!
[expand title=”References“]
Daily Mail. URL Link. Accessed April 12, 2017.
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