The Finnish connection

By digging into the causes of the exaggerated rates of Type I diabetes in Finland compared with its Northern European neighbors, an international consortium of scientists has pinpointed a connection between the microbiome and the disease, fingering a lipid component of LPS from Bacteroides bacteria as one of the key culprits.

Numerous studies have implicated the microbiome in autoimmune diseases and pathology of the gastrointestinal tract. But the new study is the first to associate specific microbial products with the onset of Type I diabetes, and, starting with data from humans, is the largest longitudinal study of the gut microbiome reported for the disease...