Evaluation of Metabolic Syndrome in Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus and the Role of Gut Microbiota: the microDIAB Study

The increasing societal and economic burden of the metabolic and cardiovascular diseases associated with a high incidence of morbidity and mortality warrants an increased effort to better understand and prevent these conditions. The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is defined by the occurrence of several risk factors including obesity, high blood pressure, dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. The MetS molecular imbalance is based on underlying processes of inflammation, oxidative stress, and adipocyte dysfunction. Several studies have shown that an imbalance in the gut microflora (i.e., dysbiosis) plays a role in insulin resistance, a hallmark of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Clinical randomized cohort studies assessing the contribution of gut microbiota in MetS on large number of patients are still scarce and the results inconclusive. Our microDIAB project aims to study the direct effects of specific bacterial strains on improving the severity of MetS in a double blind randomized clinical trial involving T2DM patients from NE part of Romania. The paper depicts the overall approach of our project, presents several preliminary results and future directions.