Researchers associate dietary sugar with bacterial epidemics

A team of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that in laboratory tests and animal models, trehalose enhances the virulence of epidemic C. difficile lineages that predominate in patient infections.

 

The increasing frequency and severity of healthcare-associated outbreaks caused by bacterium Clostridium difficile has been linked to the widely used food additive trehalose.

 

The bacteria cause life-threatening inflammation of the colon and diarrhea. Patients 65 years and older are at most risk, and most infections occur in people who have received medical care and antibiotics.

 

In 2000, trehalose was approved as a food additive in the United States for a number of foods from sushi and vegetables to ice cream, and about three years later the reports of outbreaks with these lineages started to increase.

 

The experiments have provided evidence that dietary trehalose has contributed to the predominance of epidemic C. difficile lineages and to their virulence. Because the genetic factors that allow these bacteria to metabolize trehalose and increase the production of toxins were present well before the outbreaks started, the researchers are investigating what could have triggered the epidemics.