Endocrinology & Metabolic Syndrome
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-1017
ISSN: 2161-1017
Christo John Frederick Muller
Biomedical Research and Innovation Platform, South African Medical Research Council, Tygerberg 7505, South Africa
Keynote: Endocrinol Metab Syndr
Recent research indicates that the gut microbiota plays a crucial role in maintaining health or promoting metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Modulation of the gut microbiome composition by enhancing the polyphenol content of the diet has potentiality in health improvement and even disease prevention. Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) is known to exhibit such preventive effects against metabolic diseases such as diabetes. We propose that a major factor mediating these effects is through the regulation of gut microbiota by Rooibos polyphenols. We used a high fat and sugar diet-induced non-human diabetic primate model (n=6) to elucidate the effects of Rooibos on GUT microbiota. In the study, we evaluated the effect of 4 weeks of supplementation (90 mg/kg body weight) with a pharmaceutical grade aspalathin-enriched green rooibos extract (Afriplex GRT) containing ca. 12.8% aspalathin, on the gut microbiota of high fat diet-induced diabetic and normal vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops). Stools collected before and during treatment were analyzed by Microbial DNA qPCR array. The 28-day treatment of the monkeys with GRT extract, improved glucose tolerance, lowered cholesterol, specifically LDL-cholesterol in the blood. In addition, Afriplex GRT significantly affected bacteria deemed to be characteristic of the microbiota phenotype harmful to the metabolism as seen in the shifts between normal monkeys on a maize diet compared to diabetic monkeys on a high fat and sugar diet. The Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes (F/B) ratio, increased in the diabetic monkeys, was reduced by the treatment, that correlated with improved blood glucose and lipid parameters. Key bacterial species increased by the GRT treatment, include: Akkermansia muciniphila, Bacteroides intestinalis, Desulfovibrio piger and Bifidobacterium adolescentis. Supplementation of the diabetic animals Afriplex GRT treatment improved several microbial species relevant to human metabolic diseases in high fat and sugar fed diabetic vervet monkeys.
Prof. Christo J.F. Muller is Chief Specialist Scientist, Biomedical Research and Innovation Platform (BRIP), South African Medical Research Council. He has 2 International patents (USA and Europe) for the prevention of diabetes and has authored and co-authored 81 peer–reviewed articles and two book chapters. He has graduated 5 MSc, 3 PhD and supervised 2 postdoctoral fellows. Currently he is supervising 3 PhD’s and 4 MSc students and acts as a reviewer for many international journals. Prof Muller focuses his research on the potential role of phenolic compounds in the prevention and treatment of metabolic conditions such as insulin resistance, dysbiosis, obesity and type 2 diabetes. He is also involved with a proteomics study to identify early markers for type 2 diabetes. These markers are currently being tested in human subjects.
E-mail: christo.muller@mrc.ac.za