Journal of Nutraceuticals and Food Science

Short Commentary

According to the Southeast Asian International Diabetes Federation (IDF), 425 million people worldwide have diabetes, including 78 million in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, if nothing is achieved, this figure is projected to grow to 629 million by 2045. Although there is no definite treatment for diabetes, it can be managed with a variety of drugs. Despite this, bimolecular and pharmacological researchers have progressed in their knowledge of the function of synbiotics in the treatment of the condition. Studies shows a connection between the makeup of the intestinal microbiota and metabolic diseases like obesity and diabetes based on large-scale 16s rRNA gene sequencing, quantitative real-time PCR, and fluorescent in situ hybridization. As a result, probiotics are supposed to play a major role in neutralizing the condition by stimulating the protective microbiota.

The gut microenvironment is dominated by two bacterial phyla: Gram-negative bacteroidetes and Gram-positive firmicutes. Obesity has been linked to a rise in bacteroidetes over time, as well as a decrease in firmicutes, according to new studies. Patients of type-2 diabetes, in particular, have slightly less firmicutes species, resulting in a rise in the bacteroidetes/firmicutes ratio, which is positively correlated with plasma glucose concentration. A similar phenomenon has been linked to the onset of auto-immune diseases including type 1-diabetes. Changes in the microbiome often improve the infiltration of opportunistic microbes, which are immune to oxidative stress and can reduce sulphates while inhibiting the growth of butyrate-producing bacteria at the same time.

Another compelling approach is to manage type-2 diabetes by modulating gut hormones such as gastric inhibitory polypeptide and glucagon-like peptide-1 through probiotic and prebiotic interventions. Hormones are involved in glucose homeostasis in this sense, which results in the condition triggered by peripheral insulin tolerance or inability of β-cells to produce insulin being neutralized. Since both carbohydrates have been linked to adiposity reduction, research is currently focusing on developing new prebiotics, such as arabinoxylan and arabinoxylan oligosaccharides, which show promise in combating associated metabolic disorders.

Arise in energy supply, sedentariness, and a greater regulation of atmospheric temperature, both of which contribute to an imbalance in energy consumption and expenditure, is related to abnormal or unhealthy fat (obesity) accumulation that specifically impairs health. It has been shown that transplanting the intestinal microflora of obese mice into germ-free mice may reproduce the obese phenotype and can contribute to improved energy extraction from food and lipogenesis stimulation.

Probiotics have physiological roles that help the host environment's controlling microbes stay healthy. The sympathetic nervous system stimulates thermogenic and lipolytic reactions, which aid weight loss in the majority of cases. Lactobacillus gasseri (BNR17) probiotic strains have been shown to inhibit the growth of adipocyte tissue, which is the key source of leptin and adiponectin, and therefore reduce leptin secretion. Other probiotic microbes with hypocholesterolemic effects have been identified, including Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus acidophilus, and Bifidobacteriumlongum.

Probiotics have essential beneficial properties that could help us meet the majority of our dietary and medicinal supplementation needs. These microbes have demonstrated promising results in clinical trials for a variety of diseases and illnesses, including rotavirus-related diarrhoea, IBS, and food allergies. Furthermore, probiotics function in the prevention and treatment of diabetes, obesity, cancer, and diseases caused by pathogenic microbes is an exciting and rapidly developing research area. Dietary probiotic supplementation mostly includes dairy products, but probiotics may also be found in fermented non-dairy foods, providing an additional and more beneficial basis for testing new probiotic strains. Furthermore, current clinical and dietary evaluations have shown some impressive roles of specific probiotic strains. Specifically, control of energy in various catabolic and anabolic systems, acid and bile immunity, capacity to adhere to gut epithelial cells, ability to fight pathogens, and other properties, such as safety-enhancing properties, dietary suitability, and beneficial nutrients for human wellbeing. As a result, the latest emphasis is on testing new probiotic strains and their applicability in biomedical/clinical studies, opening the way for a new era of probiotic discovery and exploitation aimed at enhancing human health.