Progress in the Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus Based on Intestinal Flora Homeostasis and the Advancement of Holistic Analysis Methods

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a complex metabolic disorder characterized by abnormal glucose metabolism, which is accompanied by alterations in energy metabolism, intestinal bacterial metabolism, amino acid metabolism, lipid metabolism, nucleotide metabolism, and others. However, intestinal flora metabolism plays a fundamental role in host metabolism; they are complementary to each other and help maintain homeostasis, thus ensuring the normal operation of the host metabolic system. This suggests that a holistic analysis method would be of great use in the study of the overall metabolism in patients with DM. With this in mind, this review summarizes the mechanism of intestinal flora metabolism regarding the occurrence of DM and assesses the effects of drug treatments on the intestinal flora of patients with diabetes. Based on these results, we combined intestinal flora metabolism with host metabolism to evaluate the necessity and the advantages of holistic metabonomics analyses in the treatment of DM and its complications.