A poorly balanced set of gut microbes can lead to dysbiosis and a leaky gut.

Over time, this can lead to chronic systemic inflammation, which requires a lot of energy.

Insulin resistance develops, diverting sugar from body tissues to fuel the hyperactive immune system.

That resistance, over time, leads to metabolic disease and type 2 diabetes.

“Diabetes is caused by melancholy.” —Thomas Willis

“Diabetes is caused by melancholy.” —Thomas Willis

When we think about diabetes, the first organ to come to mind is not the gut but the pancreas. But a new review finds that the gut plays a major role in diabetes, a deadly disease that affects one-tenth of the population and rising.

To add insult to injury, diabetics are three times more likely to be depressed than the rest of the population, which is already pretty depressed. Perhaps the more interesting statistic is the converse: Depressed people are 60 percent more likely to develop diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes comes from a lack of insulin-producing cells and is typically treated with injections of insulin. But it accounts for less than 10 percent of diabetes. The vast majority of diabetes is type 2, and that’s where the gut comes in.

The Role of Diet and the Gut Microbiome in Diabetes

Because diabetics have trouble controlling blood sugar, what they eat makes a big difference. So, on one level, it’s obvious that the gut contributes to diabetes. But there is another important factor: the microbes that live there. The gut microbiome, in fact, may really be how diabetes starts—and how it ends.

The typical American eats a lot of carbs, which our intestine breaks down........

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