Bacteria ‘can ward off diabetes’
Posted 3 years ago by Soraya in General Health News
US scientists believe that bacteria can help to protect against insulin-dependent type I diabetes, by stopping the rogue immune response that triggers the disease. Researchers studied diabetic mice that had been genetically engineered with their immune systems lacking a key protein which allowed them to kill off the bacteria. Mice raised in an environment free of germs developed type I diabetes in 80% of cases, yet mice given a mixture of bacteria normally resident in the mammalian gut developed diabetes in only 33% of cases. Roughly 300,000 people in Britain have type I diabetes, caused by an autoimmune response that destroys inulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
Reference: The Metro
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