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Bee Research Shows Taste May Be Linked to Diabetes

Scientists at Arizona State Univ. have discovered that honey bees may teach us about basic connections between taste perception and metabolic disorders in humans. By experimenting with honey bee genetics, researchers have identified connections between sugar sensitivity, diabetic physiology and carbohydrate metabolism. Bees and humans may partially share these connections.

Caption: A new-born honey bee worker (Apis mellifera) breaks free from her nursery chamber in the colony nest. A few weeks later, she will leave the hive in search for nectar and pollen to feed her siblings and mother queen. The genes vitellogenin and ultraspiracle, which regulate the bees’ behavioral transition to foraging tasks, also coordinate their carbohydrate metabolism, blood sugar levels, sweet taste and several metabolic genes in adipose tissue. When vitellogenin and ultraspiracle are simultaneously suppressed in adipose cells, the bees develop a metabolic syndrome similar to Type 1 diabetes. Image: Christofer Bang

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