Brooke Smyth; Moroni Lopez; Mimi Ross; Luaren Manwaring; Mathew Austin, Brigham Young University
In 2015 there were over 30 million Americans with diabetes and over 84 million Americans ages 18 and older had pre-diabetes. With diabetes being the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and becoming more prevalent with time the race is on to find a cure. One of the main problems with this disease is the decrease in functional β-cell mass. β-cells produce insulin which maintain blood glucose levels at healthy levels. Thus if we can increase β-cell proliferation and β-cell survival we are one step closer to curing diabetes. Cocoa epicatechins have been shown to be beneficial in blocking diabetes progression. Studies have shown that oligomeric and polymeric cocoa epicatechin extracts improve diabetes onset in a mouse model of Type 2 diabetes. We have demonstrated that the oligomeric fraction of cocoa epicatechins enhances β-cell survival in an in vitro model. Absorption studies have shown that while the oligomeric and polymeric forms are not readily absorbed in the gut, they are metabolized by gut bacteria and that these metabolites can be observed in circulation. We have studied the effect of three microbial metabolites of cocoa flavanols: 5-phenylvaleric acid, Homovanillic acid, and Hippuric Acid. Here we present data regarding the effect of these microbial cocoa flavanol metabolites on β-cell proliferation and cell survival.