1.9 min. read
It’s a new realization of what an old, well-known side effect antibiotics can produce. And it came out of the recent focus on the importance of a healthy gut microbiome to our overall health and well being…
Why someone in the medical or clinical community didn’t suspect this sooner, I just don’t under-stand. But I’ll agree it could be a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees…
An obvious relationship
Okay… Ask yourself what antibiotics are supposed to do. Answer: Kill harmful bacteria (pictured top of page) in your system. Now… Ask yourself what makes your gut biome tick. Answer: bacteria!
It’s not a long leap from there to the conclusion that antibiotics may harm your gut biome – which is responsible for myriad aspects of your health and well being. But now, science has discovered that excess sugar consumption while taking antibiotics can intensify the disruption those drugs cause to beneficial gut bacteria.
Bacteria love sugar
What the team from New York University (NYU) discovered was… If your gut bacteria are already weakened by antibiotics, excess sugar can fuel harmful bacteria to new heights of nastiness.
The researchers looked both at mouse-based experiments and their own survey of diet versus gut bacteria diversity in 9,419 meals serve3 to cancer patients at City of Hope and Sloan Kettering Institute.
What they found
For every additional 100 grams of sugar eaten during the 48 hours before treatment, the researchers observed an additional 21 percent decline in alpha diversity, a measure of the variety of beneficial bacterial species found in the gut.
An abstract of the study report also notes: “The find-ings also showed that sugary diets combined with antibiotic treatment were associated with increases in Enterococcus faecium [pictured left] among patients. This bacterial species has been linked to infections that can be difficult to treat.” Producing a double-whammy for doctors to deal with.
The takeaway
“As we are learning how collateral damage of antibi-otics to the microbiome are linked with long-term health problems, it’s important to identify factors that limit these unintended health risks,” said the study’s co-senior author Dr Jonas Schluter, PhD, of the Department of Microbiology at NYU Langone. “Our study suggests that modifying diet during and after antibiotics, specifically by reducing sweets intake, could help with that.”
My take
Okay… I’ll allow that the study’s key finding was not a direct result of excess sugar intake. More of a ricochet effect. But it would take only a simple thought experiment to come to the same conclusions.
Another troubling aspect of the study’s discovery is that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise. That’s been attributed to the too-free use of antibiotics, which has led to the evolution of resistant species. Those ‘superbugs’ will only become a greater threat if folks being treated with antibiotics keep consuming excess sugar!
~ Maggie J.