A drug that appears to target specific intestinal bacteria in the guts of mice may create a chain reaction that could eventually lead to new treatments for obesity and diabetes in humans, according to a team of researchers.
Mice fed a high-fat diet and provided tempol, an anti-oxidant drug that may help protect people from the effects of radiation, were significantly less obese than those that did not receive the drug, according to Andrew Patterson, assistant professor of molecular toxicology, Penn State, who worked with Frank J. Gonzalez, laboratory metabolism chief, and James B. Mitchell, radiation biology branch chief, both of the National Cancer Institute.
"The two interesting findings are that the mice that received tempol didn’t gain as much weight and the tempol somehow impacted the gut microbiome of these mice," said Patterson. "Eventually, we hope that this can lead to a new line of therapeutics to treat obesity and diabetes."
The microbiome is the biological environment of microorganisms within the human body.
The researchers, who reported their findings in the current issue of Nature Communications, said that tempol reduces some members of a bacteria — a genus of Lactobacillus — in the guts of mice. When the Lactobacillus levels decreases, a bile acid — tauro-beta-muricholic acid — increases. This inhibits FXR — farnesoid X receptor, which regulates the metabolism of bile acids, fats and glucose in the body, according to the researchers.