Therapeutic targets in type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome From microbiome to medication

As obesity and diabetes remain significant problems for world health and current therapeutic strategies are insufficient to completely avert complications, the need for novel therapies is more urgent than ever. In the past decade, research aimed to understand the role of microbiome in our health and tried to establish the impact of the gut microbiome in the pathophysiology of obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. This thesis aimed to provide an overview of current knowledge on gut microbiome associations with health and disease in animals as well as in human. Moreover, we conducted the first human intervention study trying to translate some previous findings from animal studies in which the microbiota derived metabolite butyrate was found to have beneficial effects on glucose metabolism. Regarding the gut microbiome composition, we show that different ethnicities living in the same geographic area experience differences in gut microbiome composition, beyond socio-economic status and diet. Finally, we described the effect of dapagliflozin on lipid metabolism.