A new research study reveals how fruit bats’ unique physiology enables a healthy high-sugar diet, offering insights for human diabetes research.
A high-sugar diet is bad news for humans, leading to diabetes, obesity, and even cancer. Yet fruit bats survive and even thrive by eating up to twice their body weight in sugary fruit every day.
Now, UC San Francisco scientists have discovered how fruit bats may have evolved to consume so much sugar, with potential implications for the 37 million Americans with diabetes. The findings, published today (January 9, 2024) in
Ahituv’s team focused on evolution in the bat pancreas, which controls blood sugar, and the kidneys. They found that the fruit bat pancreas, compared to the pancreas of an insect-eating bat, had extra insulin-producing cells as well as genetic changes to help it process an immense amount of sugar. And fruit bat kidneys had adapted to ensure that vital electrolytes would be retained from their watery meals.
“Even small changes, to single letters of DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44186-y
Key collaborators included co-first author Seungbyn Baek, PhD, from Yonsei University (South Korea); co-senior author Martin Hemberg, PhD, from Harvard Medical School; Tony Schountz, PhD, from Colorado State University; Lisa Noelle Cooper, PhD, from Northeast Ohio Medical University; Melissa R. Ingala, PhD, Fairleigh Dickinson University; and Nancy B. Simmons, PhD, American Museum of Natural History. Other UCSF authors are Hai P. Nguyen, PhD, Yien-Ming Kuo, PhD, Rachael Bradley, and Sarah L. Fong, PhD. For all authors see the paper.