Rhubarb Supplementation Prevents Diet-Induced Obesity and Diabetes in Association with Increased Akkermansia muciniphila in Mice

Obesity and obesity-related disorders, such as type 2 diabetes have been progressively increasing worldwide and treatments have failed to counteract their progression. Growing evidence have demonstrated that gut microbiota is associated with the incidence of these pathologies. Hence, the identification of new nutritional compounds, able to improve health through a modulation of gut microbiota, is gaining interest. In this context, the aim of this study was to investigate the gut-driving effects of rhubarb extract in a context of diet-induced obesity and diabetes. Eight weeks old C57BL6/J male mice were fed a control diet (CTRL), a high fat and high sucrose diet (HFHS) or a HFHS diet supplemented with 0.3% (g/g) of rhubarb extract for eight weeks. Rhubarb supplementation fully prevented HFHS-induced obesity, diabetes, visceral adiposity, adipose tissue inflammation and liver triglyceride accumulation, without any modification in food intake. By combining sequencing and qPCR methods, we found that all these effects were associated with a blooming of Akkermansia muciniphila, which is strongly correlated with increased expression of Reg3γ in the colon. Our data showed that rhubarb supplementation is sufficient to protect against metabolic disorders induced by a diet rich in lipid and carbohydrates in association with a reciprocal interaction between Akkermansia muciniphila and Reg3γ.

Keywords: Akkermansia muciniphila; Reg3γ; Rhubarb; diabetes; gut microbiota; obesity.