A high-carbohydrate diet can damage the intestines and increase the risk of colitis-ScienceDaily

“Colitis is a major public health problem in the United States and other Western countries,” said Dr. Hasan Zaki, who led the study that appears in today’s study. Scientific translation medicine.. “This is very important from a public health perspective.”

Colitis can cause persistent diarrhea, abdominal pain, and rectal bleeding. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of American adults suffering from IBD (including Crohn’s disease) surged from 2 million in 1999 to 3 million in 2015. In addition, colitis has historically begun to appear in children who have not suffered from colitis, says Zaki, an assistant professor of UT Southwestern pathology.

Because the prevalence of the disease is much higher in Western countries, researchers are considering a Western diet high in fat, sugar, and animal protein as a possible risk factor, Zaki said. I am. While a high-fat diet has been shown to cause IBD, he says the role of sugar is more controversial.

The new study points to sugar, especially glucose in high fructose corn syrup, which was developed by the food industry in the 1960s and is increasingly used to sweeten soft drinks and other foods, as the prime suspect. I will. According to a study, “incidence of IBD increased during this same period in Western countries, especially among children.”

Researchers at UT Southwestern gave mice an aqueous solution containing 10% of various edible sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose for 7 days. They found that mice genetically predisposed to develop colitis, or mice given colitis-inducing chemicals, develop more severe symptoms when first given sugar. discovered.

Researchers then used gene sequencing techniques to identify the type and prevalence of bacteria found in the large intestine of mice before and after receiving sugar therapy. Studies have shown that after 7 days of sugar treatment, people fed sucrose, fructose, and especially glucose, showed significant changes in the microbial population in the gut.

While more bacteria known to produce mucolytic enzymes such as Akkermansia have been found, other types of insects, such as Lactobacillus, which are commonly found in the gut and are considered good bacteria, It has decreased.

Researchers have seen evidence of a thinning of the mucous layer that protects the lining of the large intestine and signs of infection by other bacteria. “The mucous layer protects the intestinal mucosal tissue from infiltration of the gut flora,” the study explains. “Therefore, the high abundance of mucolytic bacteria such as Akkermansia muciniphila and Bacteroides fragilis in glucose-treated mice is a potential risk of the intestinal mucus barrier.

“Intestinal bacteria were close to the epithelial layer of the large intestine in glucose-treated mice due to mucus erosion,” the study continues. “Breaking of the epithelial barrier is an important starting event for intestinal inflammation.”

Glucose had the greatest effect, but “all three monosaccharides significantly altered the composition of the gut flora,” the study reports. Previous studies have shown that the gut flora of both humans and mice can change rapidly with dietary changes. “Our research clearly shows that you really have to care about your food,” says Zaki.

After discovering changes in the gut flora of sugar-fed mice, researchers fed feces from sugar-treated mice to other mice. These mice develop worse colitis, suggesting that glucose-induced susceptibility to colitis may be transmitted with a destructive gut microbiota from affected animals.

Zaki said he plans to study whether and how hyperglycemia affects the development of other inflammatory diseases such as obesity, fatty liver disease, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. I am.