Will a Western diet plan affect the chance of chronic gut infections?
07 May, 2021
The city of microorganisms that lives in the human gut, referred to as the gut microbiome, provides a variety of “services” to its hosts.
Most of the microbes are in the large intestine, where they prey on fiber which has passed undigested through the earlier parts of the digestive system.
Some scientists believe that a Western-style diet plan, which is saturated in fat and basic carbohydrates but low in fiber, may provide insufficient quantities of fiber to aid a diverseTrusted Source gut microbiome and its health benefits.
For instance, they cite evidence that highly processed, low fiber diets are associated with an increased prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease, metabolic syndrome, and cancer.
Another health benefit that the gut microbiota provides is to defend the large intestine against colonization by disease-causing bacteria, such as Salmonella and Clostridium difficile.
These hidden defenses only become apparent after a span of antibiotics, which, by disrupting the gut microbiota, could make hospital patients even more susceptible to infection with potentially lifestyle threatening pathogens.
A team of experts at Georgia Express University in Atlanta speculated that the colons of folks who eat a Western-style diet may be more prone to colonization with foodborne bacteria, such as for example pathogenic strains of E. coli.
When the scientists tested their hypothesis in mice, these were surprised to discover that a Western-style diet plan reduced the original colonization of the animals’ large intestines simply by a disease-causing bacterium.
“Nevertheless, mice consuming the Western-style diet regularly developed persistent an infection that was connected with low grade inflammation and insulin level of resistance,” says Andrew Gewirtz, Ph.D., who's a professor at the university’s Institute for Biomedical Sciences and senior co-author of the study.
Insulin resistance can be an early signal of type 2 diabetes.
Mouse style of human infection
The researchers studied the effect of a Western-style diet plan on the colonization of the large intestine by the bacterium Citrobacter rodentium in mice.
Prof. Gewirtz informed Medical Reports Today that researchers quite often employ C. rodentium to unit human gut infections with E. coli.
Both species are similar genetically and metabolically, he said, and both cause acute inflammation through very similar mechanisms.
“Therefore, we speculate our results predict how diet plan would influence E. coli in individuals, but [we] have no idea of any findings to immediately address this,” he explained.
Compared with the most common, grain-based lab chow, ingesting a Western-style diet resulted in a rapid reduction in the amount of bacteria in the pets or animals’ feces.
When the team laced the animals’ feed with C. rodentium, there was a modest reduction in the original colonization of the gut by the bacterium and reduced severe inflammation in the mice on the Western-style diet plan. However, these results weren't statistically significant.
“Yet, the virtually all striking consequence of [Western-style diet] consumption was frequent inability of mice to sharp this pathogen,” the researchers write within their paper.
All the mice that ate a grain-based diet cleared the bacterium from their gut within just 3 weeks of the initial infection, but 40% of the mice that ate a Western-style still had the infection 8 weeks later.
The mice in the grain-based diet plan group were also completely resistant to reinfection with C. rodentium. In comparison, those that ate the Western-style diet and primarily recovered from the infection were susceptible to repeat, chronic infections with the bacterium.
Furthermore, the scientists found some evidence of insulin resistance and low grade inflammation in the mice on the Western-style diet plan that developed a chronic C. rodentium infection. Nevertheless, the reduced grade inflammation was not statistically significant.
Amazing complexity
The principal limitation of the analysis is that it investigated colonization by pathogens in mice eating two several diets, which may not reflect what goes on in humans.
However, the study demonstrates the complexity of the effects of diet about the gut microbiota and the possible knock-on results on human health.
One of the biggest challenges facing humanity is the inexorable surge of antibiotic resistanceTrusted Origin in disease-causing bacteria.
Regarding to David Weiss, Ph.D., Director at the Emory Antibiotic Level of resistance Middle at Emory University School of Drugs, GA, there is absolutely no evidence that a Western-style diet plan promotes antibiotic level of resistance in pathogenic gut bacteria.
Even so, he told Medical Information Today that the potential health advantages from a deeper understanding of the human microbiome will tend to be far-reaching.
“Ten years from now, if we look returning and say, ‘what was overall the largest development in medicine?’, it could be understanding the microbiome and harnessing the microbiome to treat disease,” he said.
“It’s as a result unbelievably complex, but it’s also amazing.”
Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com
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