source: Le Soleil (Quebec City), June 8, 2021
author: Jean-Francois Cliche
translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise
Possible breakthrough in understanding diabetes
It has long been thought that obesity and diabetes are caused primarily by the amounts of fats and sugars we consume - and this is far from false. But a team from Laval University has just put their finger on a possible “accomplice” to all these calories: certain proteins could also be risk factors.
In a study published Monday in Nature Communications , researcher and diabetes specialist André Marette fed groups of mice with exactly the same diet, but varying the types of proteins they ingested: some ate(in addition to fats and sugars) nothing other than a protein called casein, which is found in milk, while the others were given a mixture of proteins similar to a "normal" human diet.
The result: in mice on a "low calorie" diet, the type of protein consumed did not change much in terms of weight, but in those on a richer diet, the varied protein diet was associated with increased weight: 15% higher after 12 weeks compared to the “casein-only” diet.
In addition, explains Mr. Marette, “the insulin levels were also different [note: protein variety favored diabetes ] and the differences were important. And even after just two weeks, the microbiota [the bacteria that live in our intestines] was altered, so the type of protein we eat has an impact. (…) Normally, fat reserves end up being remobilized by the organism, but by changing the type of proteins in our mice, it looked like there was a blockage in the liver [which interfered with remobilization of fat reserves] ”.
The importance of the discovery is twofold, says Marette. First, it was previously thought that the kinds of protein ingested had no influence on weight gain or diabetes, but it seems that we will have to reconsider this idea. Then it could change the way we breed lab mice, especially those we study obesity and diabetes with. Right now, virtually all of them are fed casein only - but if that diet works precisely to prevent diabetes, it can skew the data.
Note: researchers from Duke (United States), Gothenburg (Sweden) and Copenhagen (Denmark) universities also co-authored the article.
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