A recent study, published in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism, says that more than body mass, diet may influence the risk of gut infection, and consuming more fiber may be the key to prevention.
Obesity is linked to the development of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and fatty liver disease.
A previous study indicates that being overweight increases the likelihood and severity of bacterial illness. However, it is unclear whether adhering to a diet that promotes obesity is sufficient to increase the risk of bacterial infection without being obese.
Canadian researchers investigated the impact of nutrition and obesity on a mouse model of a bacterial illness induced by an abundance of adherent-invasive Escherichia coli (AIEC) in the intestine.
AIEC is a bacterium that can cause harm under specific conditions.
People with Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel ailment, may have too much AIEC (called an expansion) in their digestive tract, which can be aggravated by antibiotic use.
Previous research has discovered that obesity and related factors, such as a high-fat, high-sugar diet, might alter the composition of the gut microbiota, increasing the risk of inflammation and infection.
The normal Western diet, which is high in processed foods, is also poor in fiber. However, it is unclear if this type of diet is sufficient to predispose persons to bacterial infection.
To find out more, obese mice were fed two high-fat (60 and 45 percent fat) low-fiber diets. All of the animals developed AIEC expansion in the colon. The mice on the 60 percent fat diet had a higher body mass than the mice on the 45 percent fat diet, but there was no significant difference in the amount of AIEC (AIEC load) in their systems.
“These data suggested that an aspect of diet composition rather than the magnitude of host obesity was sufficient to promote intestinal AIEC expansion,” the researchers wrote.
To investigate the effect of diet on AIEC load, the researchers fed lean mice a high-fat diet for a short period of time before severe obesity arose. After being exposed to AIEC, the lean mice on the high-fat diet had greater AIEC growth than the controls (lean mice on a normal diet).
These results “indicate that diet can regulate AIEC infectious burden independent of changes in body mass leading to obesity,” the researchers wrote.
Finally, the team found that mice on a low-fat, low-fiber diet had higher AIEC burden than those eating a normal diet, suggesting that dietary fat was not the key ingredient, but “ingestion of lower dietary fiber is sufficient to promote expansion of AIEC throughout the gut.”
One takeaway from this study is that people who are leaner may have similar risks of gut infection if they don’t eat enough fiber.
“Our data show that dietary fiber is a standalone factor,” the researchers wrote.
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