Eating high-sugar foods while taking antibiotics worsens damage to beneficial gut bacteria and promotes the growth of dangerous pathogens, according to infohub.kz.
As ScienceDaily reports, researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and colleagues analyzed more than 9,400 meals from 173 patients in cancer wards. They found that every additional 100 grams of sugar consumed in the 48 hours before treatment reduced the diversity of beneficial gut bacteria by 21 percent.
Scientists explain that antibiotics wipe out protective microbiota, while surviving pathogens use sugar as fuel to multiply rapidly. In particular, sweets combined with the drugs triggered the growth of Enterococcus faecium, a bacterium capable of causing severe, hard-to-treat infections.
Experiments in mice confirmed this pattern: in animals given antibiotics along with sucrose, the number of dangerous enterococci in the gut increased 33.4-fold after six days. Experts suggest that temporarily cutting out sweets during and after therapy could be a simple way to protect the body, but clinical trials are needed for definitive conclusions.