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Altering Gut Microbiome May Increase Resistance to C. difficile infection

Cllcanada profile image
CllcanadaTop Poster CURE Hero
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C. diff is a harmful bacterium that can cause severe, recurrent, and sometimes fatal infections in the gut. Although the bacteria are commonly found throughout our environment, C. diff infections primarily occur in patients who are taking, or who have recently finished taking, antibiotics.

North Carolina State University scientists using a mouse model found that antibiotic use creates a veritable "banquet" for Clostridium difficile (C. diff) by altering the native gut bacteria that would normally compete with C. diff for nutrients. The findings (“Shifts in the Gut Metabolome and Clostridium difficile Transcriptome throughout Colonization and Infection in a Mouse Model”), published in mSphere, could lead to the development of probiotics and other strategies for preventing C. diff infection, according to the researchers.

“Antibiotics alter the gut microbiota and decrease resistance to Clostridium difficile colonization; however, the mechanisms driving colonization resistance are not well understood. Loss of resistance to C. difficile colonization due to antibiotic treatment is associated with alterations in the gut metabolome, specifically, with increases in levels of nutrients that C. difficile can utilize for growth in vitro. To define the nutrients that C. difficile requires for colonization and pathogenesis in vivo, we used a combination of mass spectrometry and RNA sequencing (RNA Seq) to model the gut metabolome and C. difficile transcriptome throughout an acute infection in a mouse model at the following time points: 0, 12, 24, and 30 h. We also performed multivariate-based integration of the omics data to define the signatures that were most important throughout colonization and infection,” write the investigators.

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Cllcanada profile image
Cllcanada
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Kwenda profile image
Kwenda

Chris more on C Difficile..

See BBC website:-

‘ Why a faecal transplant could save your life ‘.

bbc.co.uk/news/health-43815369

Note for those in the UK, the web page lists when and how a radio program is available.

‘ Listen to The Second Genome on BBC Radio 4.

The next episode airs 11:00 BST Tuesday April 24, repeated 21:00 BST Monday April 30 and on the BBC iPlayer. ‘

Web page at:-

bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09yddx5

Dick

cllady01 profile image
cllady01Former Volunteer

So, how does that square with eating plain yogurt while taking an antibiotic?

What is in yogurt that keeps the gut environment more stable when taking an antibiotic?

Cllcanada profile image
CllcanadaTop Poster CURE Hero in reply tocllady01

Most commercial yogurt has nothing alive in it. Probiotics are added after the yogurt is made... and recent studies in Canada show, the claims are overstated...and vary considerably.

If you make your own yogurt or buy yogurt that has a live culture then you get some gut benefit...

As this study points out, they are looking at developing probiotics to counter the effects of antibiotics...

Probiotics are used in chronic C.diff patients with some good effect, and fecal transplant are curative in about 90% of cases.

But chronic C.difficle usually occurs post antibiotic exposure... acute C.diff which I had for a month, occurs when your immune system collapses and your neutrophils drop to zero...

So there are two types of C.diff.. very diffent as well... acute and chronic.

~chris

cllady01 profile image
cllady01Former Volunteer

I have always had a good response with plain yogurt (said to be cultured) or buttermilk when I take antibiotics and have stopped diarrhea with either of those when I have forgotten to eat them at first.

Of course, that is anecdotal, and it is not based on having had C.diff.

Cllcanada profile image
CllcanadaTop Poster CURE Hero

Here is a fairly accessible overview of C.diff

aafp.org/afp/2005/0301/p921...

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