Fecal Enterobacteriales enrichment is associated with increased in vivo intestinal permeability in humans

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has been linked with increased intestinal permeability, but the clinical significance of this phenomenon remains unknown. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential link between glucose control, intestinal permeability, diet and intestinal microbiota in patients with T2D. Thirty‐two males with well‐controlled T2D and 30 age‐matched male controls without diabetes were enrolled in a case–control study. Metabolic parameters, inflammatory markers, endotoxemia, and intestinal microbiota in individuals subdivided into high (HP) and normal (LP) colonic permeability groups, were the main outcomes. In T2D, the HP group had significantly higher fasting glucose (P = 0.034) and plasma nonesterified fatty acid levels (P = 0.049) compared with the LP group. Increased colonic permeability was also linked with altered abundances of selected microbial taxa. The microbiota of both T2D and control HP groups was enriched with Enterobacteriales. In conclusion, high intestinal permeability was associated with poorer fasting glucose control in T2D patients and changes in some microbial taxa in both T2D patients and nondiabetic controls. Therefore, enrichment in the gram‐negative order Enterobacteriales may characterize impaired colonic permeability prior to/independently from a disruption in glucose tolerance

Host-microbiome interactionsin human type 2 diabetes following prebiotic fibre (galactooligosaccharide) intake

Aberrant microbiota composition and function have been linked to several pathologies, including type 2 diabetes. In animal models, prebiotics induce favourable changes in the intestinal microbiota, intestinal permeability (IP) and endotoxaemia, which are linked to concurrent improvement in glucose tolerance. This is the first study to investigate the link between IP, glucose tolerance and intestinal bacteria in human type 2 diabetes. In all, twenty-nine men with well-controlled type 2 diabetes were randomised to a prebiotic (galacto-oligosaccharide mixture) or placebo (maltodextrin) supplement (5·5 g/d for 12 weeks). Intestinal microbial community structure, IP, endotoxaemia, inflammatory markers and glucose tolerance were assessed at baseline and post intervention. IP was estimated by the urinary recovery of oral 51Cr-EDTA and glucose tolerance by insulin-modified intravenous glucose tolerance test. Intestinal microbial community analysis was performed by high-throughput next-generation sequencing of 16S rRNA amplicons and quantitative PCR. Prebiotic fibre supplementation had no significant effects on clinical outcomes or bacterial abundances compared with placebo; however, changes in the bacterial family Veillonellaceae correlated inversely with changes in glucose response and IL-6 levels (r −0·90, P=0·042 for both) following prebiotic intake. The absence of significant changes to the microbial community structure at a prebiotic dosage/length of supplementation shown to be effective in healthy individuals is an important finding. We propose that concurrent metformin treatment and the high heterogeneity of human type 2 diabetes may have played a significant role. The current study does not provide evidence for the role of prebiotics in the treatment of type 2 diabetes

Long-term evidence for ecological intensification as a pathway to sustainable agriculture

Ecological intensification (EI) could help return agriculture into a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity. Using a novel application of meta-analysis to data from 30 long-term experiments from Europe and Africa (comprising 25,565 yield records), we investigated how field-scale EI practices interact with each other, and with N fertilizer and tillage, in their effects on long-term crop yields. Here we confirmed that EI practices (specifically, increasing crop diversity and adding fertility crops and organic matter) have generally positive effects on the yield of staple crops. However, we show that EI practices have a largely substitutive interaction with N fertilizer, so that EI practices substantially increase yield at low N fertilizer doses but have minimal or no effect on yield at high N fertilizer doses. EI practices had comparable effects across different tillage intensities, and reducing tillage did not strongly affect yields

Galacto-Oligosaccharide has no Effect on Glucose Tolerance, inflammatory Markers or Intestinal Permeability in well-controlled Type 2 Diabetes

No abstract available

Influence of Carbonation on the Microstructure and Hydraulic Properties of a Basic Oxygen Furnace Slag

Basic oxygen furnace (BOF) slag is considered as a potential alternative construction material and is used here on an experimental plot to accurately quantify the risk of pollutant release. Since pollutant release depends on flow, this initially requires characterizing BOF slag hydraulic properties. These were monitored and estimated at plot scale by carrying out water infiltration experiments and inverse numerical modeling. Monitoring the plot showed that the BOF slag studied crusted at the surface as a result of weathering processes. Numerical inversion proved that the crusted material differed from the unaltered slag in terms of water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions. Although all the data pointed to a decrease in saturated hydraulic conductivity with crusting, the trends depended on the infiltration devices used for the capillary length (tension disc vs. Beerkan). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) microanalysis of laboratory weathering cells and lysimeter measurements were monitored in parallel to study the microstructure more precisely and highlighted a reduction of porosity by clogging. On the basis of SEM observations, two conceptual models of pore reduction, based on two different pore clogging hypotheses, were applied to predict hydraulic properties. This step demonstrated that the effect on water retention and hydraulic conductivity strongly depended on the way precipitated phases form and coat grains and could explain the evolution of the transport properties observed. This study contributes to knowledge on the hydraulic properties of BOF slag and their evolution due to carbonatio