Is bacteria one of the causes of diabetes?

Kirill Stasevich, Compulenta

Inflammation is the body's usual response to damage to cells and tissues or to the appearance of a pathogen. Rapid and violent inflammation helps the immune system to get rid of pathogenic agents and remove infected cells in a timely manner. However, it can be hidden, sluggish, and in this case it becomes extremely dangerous, since from here there is a direct path to chronic diseases – for example, to type II diabetes.

It is believed that fat cells, under certain conditions, begin to secrete signals of an inflammatory reaction, proteins-cytokines; the developing inflammation will be weak, but if it smoulders for a long time, this will lead to a decrease in insulin sensitivity, which is considered the main sign of type II diabetes.

There are many reasons why adipose tissue cells provoke inflammation, but not the last are all the same bacteria. Suspicions that some bacteria, namely Staphylococcus aureus, are related to the development of diabetes have appeared for a long time: firstly, obesity with subsequent diabetes is often accompanied by an increase in the proportion of Staphylococcus aureus in the general microflora, and secondly, this microbe is often found in diabetic ulcers on the legs.

Staphylococcus aureus secretes toxins called superantigens; these substances disrupt the immune system, and, as was shown in the works of Patrick Schlievert and his colleagues from the University of Iowa (USA), they also cause many unpleasant consequences of staphylococcal infection, from sepsis to endocarditis.

In their new work posted on the PLoS ONE website (Staphylococcal Superantigens Stimulate Immortalized Human Adipocytes to Produce Chemokines), Schlievert and his collaborators prove that these same staphylococcal superantigens cause an inflammatory reaction in fat cells. Moreover, the usual E. coli helps staphylococcus in this.

Fragments of lipopolysaccharide, which is part of its cell membrane, enter the blood in a small amount, but normally this lipopolysaccharide neutralizes the liver. But Staphylococcus aureus, with the help of its superantigens, hinders the efforts of the liver to destroy the molecules of the cell wall of Escherichia coli.

At the same time, it is known that Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide can also cause an inflammatory response in fat cells. As a result, due to Staphylococcus aureus, fat cells are forced to respond even more strongly with inflammation to bacterial molecules: on the one hand, they are bombarded by superantigens, on the other – undisturbed pieces of the cell membrane of E. coli.

It is clear that those who have developed or are just beginning to develop type 2 diabetes, it is desirable to get rid of staphylococcus. It is unlikely, of course, that antibiotics will get rid of diabetes, however, perhaps the expulsion of this microbe from the microflora will help, if not prevent, then at least mitigate the course of the disease.

Prepared based on the materials of the University of Iowa – Bacteria and fat: a 'perfect storm' for inflammation.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru01.11.2013