Eating mushrooms may help manage diabetes – study
A new study has found that white button mushrooms, as a prebiotic food, could be used in future to manage diabetes, due to the role that they seem to play in glucogenesis.
The study looks at how eating a common type of mushroom can affect glucose, or blood sugar, regulation which notes that results may have associations for managing diabetes and other metabolic conditions, such as obesity.
The study was recently conducted in mice by researchers working in various departments of Pennsylvania State University; they wanted to investigate the effects of white button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) as prebiotics.
The researchers wanted to see whether white button mushrooms could influence the production of glucose in the body, and if so, how. They report their findings in a paper now published in the Journal of Functional Foods.
Margherita Cantorna, study co-author says “Managing glucose better has implications for diabetes, as well as other metabolic diseases,” she added that diabetes, our bodies do not produce enough of the hormone insulin, which helps regulate blood sugar levels. Insulin helps transfer glucose from the blood and into the cells, to provide them with energy. It also places excess glucose “into storage,” so to speak, so that it can be converted into energy as it is needed.
According to the study, in a mouse model, the scientists were able to map out how white button mushrooms modify the gut microbiota, ultimately leading to improved glucose regulation in the mice’s systems.
The researchers fed all the mice a daily serving of white button mushrooms, which is equivalent to about 3 ounces of mushrooms per day for humans. They found that the mice with gut microbiomes experienced changes in their populations of gut microbes. In particular, their guts produced more short-chain fatty acids, such as propionate synthesized from succinate.
The study was conducted in mice with a normal weight; the researchers explain that they are also interested in testing the effects of this prebiotic food in mice with obesity.
This, they noted, would be the first step toward eventually extending this research to human participants, in the hope that it will lead to a better understanding of how our daily diets impact metabolic processes and influence the prevention or development of certain health conditions.
Cantorna and her colleagues believe that eating white button mushrooms triggers reactions in the gut microbiome that lead to the growth of certain types of bacteria, such as Prevotella, which, in turn, boosts the production of propionate and succinate.
Moreover, their new study confirms the important link between the foods in our diet and the bacterial populations in our gut.
“It’s pretty clear that almost any change you make to the diet, changes the microbiota,” Cantorna.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH