Study: Gut microbiome can predict changes in Type 2 diabetes related glucose regulation A study carried out by researchers from the Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu revealed that human gut microbiome can be used to predict changes in Type 2 diabetes related glucose regulation up to four years ahead. Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disease characterized by elevated blood glucose levels that contributes to millions of deaths worldwide each year and its prevalence is rapidly increasing. Type 2 diabetes is preceded by "prediabetes" - a condition when the glucose levels have started to rise, but the progression of the disease can still be stopped and inverted. Therefore, early detection of the disease progression is necessary and previous research suggests that gut microbiome could be used for that purpose, said Elin Org, last author of the paper and associate professor in genomics and microbiomics.