https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56470-0
https://www.jst.go.jp/pr/announce/20250131/index.html
A research group at Kyoto University and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has extracted fecal samples from approximately 500 healthy and obese people to identify Streptococcus salivarius (S. salivarius), a type of bacteria that commonly resides in the human digestive tract, as a biomarker that suppresses sugar (sucrose)-induced obesity. It was revealed that S. salivarius not only suppresses sugar absorption in the host, but also improves the intestinal environment and prevents sucrose-induced obesity by converting excess sucrose in ingested carbohydrates into a beneficial dietary fiber-like substance (exopolysaccharides, EPS) in the intestine. This discovery proposes a new concept for the prevention and treatment of metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes, and it is highly anticipated that EPS, a dietary fiber-like substance, and EPS-producing bacteria will lead to technology to detect obesity, including diabetes, at an extremely early, pre-disease stage using improvements in the intestinal environment as an indicator, as well as new types of obesity prevention and treatment.