A new study has found that tuberculosis disrupts glucose metabolism in the liver. This potentially pushes vulnerable patients towards developing related diseases such as diabetes. The study was published in the journal PLoS Pathogens and conducted by researchers from the University of Leicester, UK.

Tuberculosis, commonly known as TB, is a condition which causes infection in your lungs and other tissues. While it usually affects your lungs, TB can also affect several other organs of your body like your spine, brain or kidneys. The condition can spread from one person to the other person when the infected person coughs, sneezes or sings.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with TB across the globe in 2022. This also included 5.8 million men, 3.5 million women and 1.3 million children.

For the study, the researchers used lab models and found that during the early stages of the bacterial infection, an immune response was triggered in liver cells that changed how glucose was broken down in the body.

In the next stage, the researchers analysed metabolism-related data of individuals from the PubMed database, which is maintained by the US National Institutes of Health. The researchers found that glucose metabolism in the liver was disrupted in people who advanced to tuberculosis from latent or asymptomatic infection.

The authors said that the findings support the current understanding that diabetes worsens symptoms of tuberculosis.

Andrea Cooper, a professor at the University of Leicester and corresponding author of the study said, “Our paper changes the focus from diabetes making tuberculosis worse to the possibility that late diagnosis of (the disease) can contribute to the disruption of glucose metabolism, insulin resistance and therefore can promote progress towards diabetes in those that are susceptible.”

The researchers said that tuberculosis patients should be screened for insulin resistance prior to treatment. Cooper said, “As diabetes compromises drug treatment, our paper also supports the idea that metabolic screening should be involved in any drug or vaccine trials.”

The authors wrote, “In summary, we have shown that despite the liver not being a primary site of infection, both lipid and glucose metabolic gene and protein expression are perturbed during TB.”

The results pave the way for future research aimed at understanding molecular routes by which the immune response changes liver metabolism, which the researchers said could allow for developing targeted interventions.

Cooper said, “We will also be investigating how latent TB (which is infection with the bacterial agent of TB without significant symptoms) might be impacting metabolic health in humans.”

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