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One type of bacteria found in the gut may contribute to the development of Type 2 diabetes, while another may protect from the disease, according to early results from an ongoing, prospective study led by investigators at Cedars-Sinai. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Diabetes, found people with higher levels of a bacterium called Coprococcus tended to have higher insulin sensitivity, while those whose microbiomes had higher levels of the bacterium Flavonifractor tended to have lower insulin sensitivity. Mark Goodarzi, the director of the Endocrine Genetics Laboratory at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, California, is leading an ongoing study that is following and observing people at risk for diabetes to learn whether those with lower levels of these bacteria develop the disease. "The big question we're hoping to address is: Did the microbiome differences cause diabetes, or did diabetes cause the microbiome differences?" said Goodarzi, who is the senior author of the study and principal investigator of the multicenter study called Microbiome and Insulin Longitudinal Evaluation Study (MILES).