ArticleNature2015
Disentangling type 2 diabetes and metformin treatment signatures in the human gut microbiota.
Article in Nature, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. It is linked to 3 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 1,115 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Randomized Phase 3 Trial of Metformin in Patients Initiating Androgen Deprivation Therapy as Prevention and Intervention of Metabolic Syndrome: The Prime Study
A Dietary Intervention With Functional Foods Reduce Metabolic Endotoxemia and Attenuates Biochemical Abnormalities in Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes by Modifying the Gut Microbiota.
The Effect of Multi-strain Probiotics on Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Metformin Intolerance. A 32-week Prospective, Single Center, Randomized, Placebo Controlled, Cross-over Clinical Trial.
Who cites it
1,115 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 2,068 citations in OpenAlex.
- Heart-Gut Axis in Cardiometabolic Disease: Microbiome-Mediated Pathways Linking Metabolic Syndrome to Cardiovascular Risk.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of variable-dose metformin as adjunctive therapy to insulin in adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.BMC endocrine disorders · 2025Pooled it
- Short-chain fatty acids and type 2 diabetes: a bibliometric analysis of knowledge structure, research hotspots, and future directions.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Pooled it
- Gut microbiota and type 2 diabetes associations: a meta-analysis of 16S studies and their methodological challenges.Frontiers in microbiomes · 2025Pooled it
- Gastrointestinal adverse events of metformin treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a systematic review and meta-analysis with meta-regression of observational studies.BMC endocrine disorders · 2024Pooled it
- Gut Microbiome Composition in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Adult Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Observational Studies.Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) · 2024Pooled it
- Systemic and gut microbiome changes with metformin and liraglutide in youth-onset type 2 diabetes: the MIGHTY study.Gut microbes · 2025Trial
- Daily profiles of plasma short-chain fatty acids after the intake of three different cereal fibers: a randomized controlled study.European journal of nutrition · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Microbes and medicines: interrelationships between pharmaceuticals and the gut microbiome.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Gut microbiome in type 2 diabetes: insights from metagenomics, multi-omics, and diet-microbe interactions.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Eggerthella lenta: metabolism, pathogenesis and therapeutic implications.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Review
- From Inclusion Complexes to Metabolic Signaling: The Emerging Role of γ-Cyclodextrin in Gut Microbiota and Metabolic Regulation.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Maternal Microbiome in Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Mechanisms, Biomarkers, and Therapeutic Perspectives.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- The Programmable Microbiome: Integrative AI and Multi-Omics Frameworks for Precision T2DM Management.Biology · 2026Review
- Letter to the Editor: Endocrine determinants of diabetic ketoacidosis outcomes in type 2 diabetes and insights into Gymnema sylvestre actions.World journal of experimental medicine · 2026Article
- Gut microbiome composition and functional potential associate with incident type 2 diabetes in 4,685 adults from a Swedish prospective cohort.Cell reports. Medicine · 2026Article
- Liraglutide and Dapagliflozin Synergistically Reshape Gut Microbiota and Metabolic Profiles to Ameliorate Type‑2 Diabetes in Mice.ACS omega · 2026Article
- Exercise reprograms the gut microbiota to enhance metabolic outcomes after bariatric surgery: a translational, cross-species study.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Article
1,055 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
30 authors at 9 institutions in 9 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In recent years, several associations between common chronic human disorders and altered gut microbiome composition and function have been reported. In most of these reports, treatment regimens were not controlled for and conclusions could thus be confounded by the effects of various drugs on the microbiota, which may obscure microbial causes, protective factors or diagnostically relevant signals. Our study addresses disease and drug signatures in the human gut microbiome of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D). Two previous quantitative gut metagenomics studies of T2D patients that were unstratified for treatment yielded divergent conclusions regarding its associated gut microbial dysbiosis. Here we show, using 784 available human gut metagenomes, how antidiabetic medication confounds these results, and analyse in detail the effects of the most widely used antidiabetic drug metformin. We provide support for microbial mediation of the therapeutic effects of metformin through short-chain fatty acid production, as well as for potential microbiota-mediated mechanisms behind known intestinal adverse effects in the form of a relative increase in abundance of Escherichia species. Controlling for metformin treatment, we report a unified signature of gut microbiome shifts in T2D with a depletion of butyrate-producing taxa. These in turn cause functional microbiome shifts, in part alleviated by metformin-induced changes. Overall, the present study emphasizes the need to disentangle gut microbiota signatures of specific human diseases from those of medication.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.