Sugar Intake During Antibiotic Treatment May Worsen Gut Microbiome Disruption

Consuming sweets and simple sugars during antibiotic treatment was associated with greater gut microbiome disruption, including reduced microbial diversity and expansion of the pathobiont Enterococcus. In this study, researchers precisely tracked 9,419 meals consumed by 173 patients undergoing haematopoietic cell transplantation and analyzed longitudinal microbiome changes in 158 patients with paired samples. Bayesian analyses showed that higher intake of sweets and sugars during antibiotic exposure predicted more severe dysbiosis, characterized by lower α-diversity and greater Enterococcus expansion. Experiments in mice further demonstrated that sucrose supplementation increased and prolonged antibiotic-induced Enterococcus expansion. These findings suggest that limiting foods rich in simple sugars during antibiotic treatment may help reduce microbiome disruption. Source: https://www.nature.com/