Mice on a high-sugar diet showed more severe inflammatory bowel disease, a type of ulcerative colitis (IBD), and researchers examining their large intestines found more bacteria with can damage the protective mucus layer of the intestine.

“Colonitis is a major public health problem in the United States and other Western countries,” said Dr Hasan Zaki, who led the study appearing in Science Translational Medicine today. “This is very important from a public health point of view.”

Colitis can cause ongoing diarrhea, abdominal pain, and rectal bleeding. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of American adults with IBD (including Crohn’s disease) increased from 2 million in 1999 to 3 million in 2015. Additionally, colitis started to appear. present in children who have not previously had the disease, said Zaki, an associate professor of pathology at UT Southwestern.

Because the prevalence of the disease is much higher in Western countries, the researchers looked at a Western-style diet — high in fat, sugar and animal protein — as a factor, says Zaki. potential risk. While a high-fat diet has been found to cause IBD, the role of sugar remains more controversial, he said.

This new study shows that sugar – specifically the glucose found in high-fructose corn syrup – was developed by the food industry in the 1960s and has since been increasingly used to sweeten drinks. refreshments and other foods – is a prime suspect. “The incidence of IBD also increased in Western countries, especially among children, during the same period,” according to the study.

UT Southwestern researchers gave mice an aqueous solution containing 10 percent concentrations of different sugars — glucose, fructose, and sucrose — for seven days. They found that mice with a genetic predisposition to developing colitis, or those injected with chemicals that cause colitis, developed more severe symptoms if they were first fed sugar. .

The researchers then used gene sequencing to determine the types and proportions of bacteria found in the mice’s large intestines before and after their sugar diets. After being treated with sugar for seven days, the animals fed sucrose, fructose and – specifically – glucose showed significant changes in the microbial population inside the gut, according to the study.

Bacteria that are thought to produce mucus-degrading enzymes, such as Akkermansia, are found in greater numbers, while some other types of bugs are considered good bacteria and are commonly found in the gut. such as Lactobacillus, becomes less abundant.

The researchers saw evidence of a thinning of the mucus layer that protects the lining of the large intestine as well as signs of infection by other bacteria. The study explains: “The mucus layer protects the intestinal mucosal tissue from colonization by the gut microbiota. “Therefore, the intake of mucus-degrading bacteria, including Akkermansia muciniphila and Bacteroides fragilis, in glucose-fed mice, poses a potential risk to the intestinal mucus barrier.

The study continued: “Due to the erosion of the mucus layer, gut bacteria were close to the epithelium of the large intestine in the glucose-treated mice. “Invasion of the epithelial barrier is a major initiating cause of enteritis.”

Although glucose had the greatest effect, “all three simple sugars profoundly altered the composition of the gut microbiota,” the study reports. Previous studies have shown that the gut microbiota 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 detecting changes in the gut microbiota in the sugar-fed mice, the researchers fed other mice feces from the sugar-fed mice. Those mice had more severe colitis, suggesting that glucose-induced sensitization to colitis could be transported along with the gut microbiota destroyed from the affected animals. .

Zaki said he now plans to study whether high sugar intake affects the development of other inflammatory diseases such as obesity, fatty liver disease and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Source: High-sugar diet can damage the gut, intensifiers risk for colitis

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