Bats may hold the key to future diabetes treatments, scientists say
Humans are not the only ones with a sweet tooth. Fruit bats are named after their love of sweet fruits. In fact, they can eat twice their body weight in fruit, which is their food source. Unfortunately, sugary foods that are full of sugar are unhealthy for humans. It can cause blood sugar levels to spike and crash over and over again. Over time, this can cause metabolic stress, fatty liver, weight gain, and insulin resistance. These are Predusdors for Prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, and heart disease. So what is it about tilet bat biology that allows it to eat so much sugar? Researchers are investigating this to find new and advanced diabetes treatments.
Unusual diet of fruit bats
Fruit bats are a group of bat species from the PteropoDodidae family. According to AZ Animals, there are 42 species across Africa, Australia, Asia and South America. They feed on a delicious diet of fruit, nectar, nectar, and pollen. Some are pollinators, like bees. But while bees transfer nectar as they move from flower to flower, bats spread pollen over long distances. They also spread the seeds of the fruit when they eat the juice and spit it out.
When these bats eat, their blood sugar levels change and yet it does not harm them in the same way it does to humans. “These bats controlled the sugar like it was nothing,“Said Nadav Ahituv, director of the Center for Human Studies at the University of California San Francisco. He and his colleagues published a 2024 study investigating bat biology to find a new treatment for diabetes.
According to Wei Gordon, a biologist at Mello College, and a co-author, bats use sugar levels to determine the strength of their next search. “They really depend on having sugar ready to go into their system to complete their lifestyle,“She said on NPR. Within half an hour of eating, the bats’ blood sugar levels return to their pre-meal levels. “So the question is,” Gordon said, “How do they deliver [their blood sugar] so low, so fast? How can they manage it without getting some kind of metabolic disease? “
Why don’t bats have diabetes?
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To find out, the team compared fruit bats to bats on an insect-based diet, high in protein and low in sugar. Entering, scientists were already able to distinguish the appearance of kidneys and pancreases of these species. So they started comparing the types and cells in these organs. “And what was really exciting was that in fruit bats, we saw a lot of cells that are responsible for maintaining your blood sugar,“Said Gordon. Specifically, fruit bats have more insulin-producing cells in their pancreas than insect-eating bats.
But insulin is not the only answer. Jasmin Camacho, a material scientist at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Missouri, believes it plays a major role in BAS Blucose levels. He gives the example of the Glolophaga Mutica Bat which feeds on nectar and eats more sugar than fruit bats. “Their biology is extreme,” he said. “They’ll go around up to 800 flowers a night. So that’s basically like every other night, they eat their body weight in sugar…” Doing the same can kill people, and yet bats stay healthy. And while fruit bats lower their high blood sugar levels with insulin, ““Nectar bats can tolerate high levels of glucose, similar to what is seen in people with uncontrolled diabetes,” Camacho said in a press release. “They came out in a different way, and it doesn’t seem to be related to insulin.”
How Exercise Affects Blood Glucose Levels
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As a result, Camache believes that exercise is essential to maintaining the health of bats. Nocturnal feeding bats are like nocturnal hummingbirds that I walk by as they feed on flowers. They have a fast metabolism that supports their fast, energy-demanding approach to flight. These bats can keep sugar circulating in their blood as they look for their next meal. Exercise has a similar effect on insulin because it triggers a rise in blood sugar. For that reason, diabetics who rely on insulin injections need to consider their activity levels when they decrease. For example, they can give themselves a little insulin before eating if they plan to walk afterwards.
Therefore, Camacho wants to know how bat biology uses exercise to control blood sugar in contrast to human biology. “Maybe that can teach us some things about how healthy they are in our lifeS, “said Camacho. He hopes that this can lead to a new treatment or a way to prevent obesity and diabetes 2. “There’s a lot we can learn from how they’ve thrived on sugar.”
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New research into the treatment of diabetes
Camacho led a 2024 study comparing 22 bat species, including those that feed on fruit, insects, nectar, meat, fish and blood. “Our research reports the highest blood sugar levels we have ever seen in nature. What can be dangerous, the levels of cheating mammals, but not bats“Said Camacho.”We are seeing a new feature that we didn’t know was possible. “
Although researchers are far from understanding how bats work, this study is an important resource for further experiments. “The datasets will inform future research aimed at dissecting differences in the diet of mammals and can advance the development of novel treatments for a variety of metabolic diseases in humans,” said AhiTuv.
The study recorded bat glucose levels above 750 mg / dl, higher than any other currency. This is a testament to how well this species has adapted to sugary foods. “We have uncovered key insights into the role of TUT in controlling blood sugar levels, a critical risk factor for diabetes,“Said Camacho in interesting engineering.”These findings emphasize the duodenum [a part of the small intestine] As an important regulator of blood glucose and a promising target for treatment aimed at reducing the absorption of sugar after a meal to improve glycemic control in the fight against diabetes. “
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