Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Aug 15, 2021; 12(8): 1146-1163
Published online Aug 15, 2021. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v12.i8.1146
Gut microbiota as a target for prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes: Mechanisms and dietary natural products
Fan Xia, Lu-Ping Wen, Bing-Chen Ge, Yu-Xin Li, Fang-Ping Li, Ben-Jie Zhou
Fan Xia, Lu-Ping Wen, Bing-Chen Ge, Ben-Jie Zhou, Department of Pharmacy, The Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen 518107, Guangdong Province, China
Yu-Xin Li, Department of Pharmacology, Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang 524023, Guangdong Province, China
Fang-Ping Li, Department of Endocrinology, The Seventh Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen 518107, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Xia F contributed to the literature review and analysis, and drafted the paper; Wen LP, Li FP, and Zhou BJ contributed equally to the paper in conception and critical revision and editing; all authors approved the final version.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81803816 and No. 82074078.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have nothing to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ben-Jie Zhou, PhD, Chief Pharmacist, Postdoc, Professor, Department of Pharmacy, The Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, No. 628 Zhenyuan Road, Guangming District, Shenzhen 518107, Guangdong Province, China. zhoubj163@163.com
Received: January 28, 2021
Peer-review started: January 29, 2021
First decision: May 3, 2021
Revised: May 10, 2021
Accepted: July 5, 2021
Article in press: July 5, 2021
Published online: August 15, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Numerous natural products possessing prebiotic effects like fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants, have been found to ameliorate type 2 diabetes mellitus by modulating gut microbiota composition and abundance, reducing the gut permeability, and subsequently increasing the production of short-chain fatty acids and biosynthesis and metabolism of branched-chain fatty acids, decreasing the level of lipopolysaccharide, and inhibiting the inflammation.