Response to Comment on Sofi et al. pH of Drinking Water Influences the Composition of Gut Microbiome and Type 1 Diabetes Incidence. Diabetes 2014;63:632–644

We recently described that drinking water pH influences the composition of gut microbiota and type 1 diabetes (T1D) incidence in nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice (1,2). In a study conducted at the specific pathogen–free (SPF) facilities of University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), Sofi et al. (1) reported an association between consumption of acidic drinking water (AW) and high diabetes incidence in NOD mice obtained from The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) and mice from the breeding colonies of UIC and MUSC. However, in a separate study conducted at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Wolf et al. (2) described an opposite outcome—low disease incidence in NOD mice that were given AW. Both these studies showed profound differences in the gut microbiota of …