When Sylvia Miles played a real estate agent in the 1987 film "Wall Street" she counseled Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) about location, location, location: "Everybody tells you they hate the Upper East Side ... But believe me, when it's resale time, the East Side moves all the time." Location can make or break the value of a house or apartment. The same could be said of the microbes in your gastrointestinal tract. If they end up in a bad neighborhood, your health can plummet.
A study in the journal Nature Metabolism reveals that in people with obesity, bacteria or their products may migrate through the gut wall into other tissue - especially in the liver and belly fat. Once there, they trigger inflammation that changes how your metabolism functions and keeps insulin from doing its job of regulating blood glucose levels. That causes Type 2 diabetes.
Another team of international researchers recently set out to discover which gut bacteria protect against diabetes. They found certain forms of bacteria synthesize a molecule called Cresol-4, a metabolite that stimulates insulin-producing beta cell production. Cresol-4 is measurably low in folks with diabetes.
We're beginning to learn how obesity triggers diabetes. But until then it's smart to know that Cresol-4 is found in low levels in tomatoes, asparagus, coffee and tea. They're good foods to eat while you work to maintain a diabetes-defeating, healthy weight with the recipes in Dr. Mike's "What to Eat When Cookbook" and Dr. Oz's System 20 plan. (Go to DoctorOz.com and search for System 20.)
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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