{
  "id": 1532562,
  "title": "Pakistani Doctors May Soon Prescribe New Probiotic to Treat Blood Sugar",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/17/pakistani-doctors-may-soon-prescribe-new-probiotic-to-treat-blood",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-08-17T17:11:11.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "ProPakistani",
    "slug": "propakistani",
    "url": "https://propakistani.pk/2026/08/17/pakistani-doctors-may-soon-prescribe-new-probiotic-to-treat-blood-sugar/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Chinese scientists have created an engineered probiotic called GIFT, which can monitor fluctuations in blood glucose levels and release a glucose-lowering hormone known as GLP-1 as needed. This innovative oral probiotic, developed at East China Normal University in Shanghai, functions as a \"living drug\" that combines glucose sensing with therapeutic response, eliminating the need for conventional treatments that involve medication or injections. The researchers describe GIFT as an \"intelligent virtual organ\" that can detect glucose fluctuations and adjust hormone release accordingly, potentially offering a programmable, closed-loop system for metabolic treatment. By using synthetic biology to transform a probiotic microorganism into this intelligent system, the researchers aim to provide a more efficient and complication-free approach to diabetes management compared to cell transplantation therapies. This novel oral probiotic approach could help avoid some of the immune concerns and transplantation-related complications associated with mammalian cell-based treatments, making it a promising development given the global burden of diabetes. With over 530 million adults worldwide affected by diabetes, and this number expected to surpass 850 million by 2050, GIFT's potential for broader clinical use remains to be seen, pending further testing and validation.",
  "summary": "Chinese scientists have developed an engineered probiotic that can sense changes in blood glucose and release a glucose-lowering hormone when … Read More The post Pakistani Doctors May Soon Prescribe New Probiotic to Treat Blood Sugar appeared first on ProPakistani .",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}