Want to lose some weight? Opt for low carb and high protein diet! This is the go-to suggestion every second person advises. But did you know this may lead to alleviation of hospital-acquired infections? A recent study says so. Published in mSystems, an open access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, the study by University of Nevada, Las Vegas, surrounded the hospital-acquired infection Clostridioides difficile. The researchers found that interaction between "antibiotic use and a high-fat/high-protein diet exacerbate C. diff infections in mice". On the other hand, their research inferred that a high carbohydrate diet nearly eliminated symptoms.
As per an ANI report, C. diff is defined as an intestinal infection which is often acquired when antibiotics wipe out the 'good' bacteria in the gut. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention termed it an urgent threat.
"Every day, we are learning more about the human microbiome and its importance in human health. The gut microbiome is strongly affected by diet, but the C. diff research community hasn't come to a consensus yet on the effects of diet on its risk or severity. Our study helps address this by testing several diets with very different macronutrient content. That is, the balance of dietary carbohydrate, protein, and fat were very different," said Brian Hedlund, a UNLV microbiologist and study co-author, as per the report.
Though the study shows that dietary protein aggravates C. diff, there's almost no existing research on the link between high-fat/high-protein diet and the infection.
However, Hedlund and the co-author of the study, Ernesto Abel-Santos, a UNLV biochemist, cautioned that the study was conducted using an animal model and that ore work is underway to establish a link between these diets and infections in human being.