Posted on 12/30/2021 7:08:26 AM PST by Red Badger
A sugar additive used in several foods could have helped spread a seriously dangerous superbug around the US, according to a 2018 study.
The finger of blame is pointed squarely at the sugar trehalose, found in foods such as nutrition bars and chewing gum.
If the findings are confirmed, it's a stark warning that even apparently harmless additives have the potential to cause health issues when introduced to our food supply.
In this case, trehalose is being linked with the rise of two strains of the bacterium Clostridium difficile, capable of causing diarrhea, colitis, organ failure, and even death.
The swift rise of the antibiotic-resistant bug has become a huge problem for hospitals in recent years, and the timing matches up with the arrival of trehalose.
"In 2000, trehalose was approved as a food additive in the United States for a number of foods from sushi and vegetables to ice cream," said one of the researchers, Robert Britton from the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, back in January 2018.
"About three years later the reports of outbreaks with these lineages started to increase. Other factors may also contribute, but we think that trehalose is a key trigger."
The C. difficile lineages Britton is referring to are RT027 and RT078. When the researchers analysed the genomes of these two strains, they found DNA sequences that enabled them to feed off low doses of trehalose sugar very efficiently.
In fact, these particular bacteria need about 1,000 times less trehalose to live off than other varieties of C. difficile, thanks to their genetic make-up.
To test their findings, the scientists experimented with mice given the RT027 strain. In the group given low doses of trehalose, the death rate was much higher – not because of more bacteria, the scientists found, but because the sugar enabled it to produce more poisonous toxins.
Further testing on fluids from three human intestines showed that RT027 was able to grow from small amounts of trehalose, while other bacteria strains weren't.
It's still not certain that trehalose has contributed to the rise of C. difficile, but the study results and the timing of its approval as an additive are pretty compelling. More research will now be needed to confirm the link.
According to the figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, logged in 2011, C. difficile was responsible for half a million infections across the year and 29,000 deaths within the first 30 days of diagnosis. Let's hope this new research can help us work out ways to fight back against it.
"These lineages have been present in people for years without causing major outbreaks," says one of the researchers, James Collins from the Baylor College of Medicine.
"In the 1980s they were not epidemic or hypervirulent but after the year 2000 they began to predominate and cause major outbreaks."
"An important contribution of this study is the realisation that what we once considered a perfectly safe sugar for human consumption, can have unexpected consequences."
The findings were published in Nature.
“A Common Sugar Additive *COULD* Be Driving The Rise of One of The Most Aggressive Superbugs”
or not:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6558026/
Just as Monkeys *COULD* fly out of my butt.
Need to score some heirloom corn from Sandhill and hot peppers from Refining Fire chiles.
Never purchased from Sandhill. Seems like it was a weird process and they’d get around to it when they get around to it, maybe. Several years ago, he said he was going to try and breed the Delaware back to becoming the meat bird it was being bred for before the Cornish Cross was developed and took over. He was originally going for fast growth and abundant meat. Don’t think he went anywhere with it though. Last time I looked, the description didn’t say anything about that. Just a dual purpose breed.
Good. You are welcome to steal it.
I did.
Spread far and wide, as I like to say.
Sandhill is mail-order only...their heirloom corn/popcorn makes it worth the trouble for me, though. (You have to be fast.) I did get my Dora tomato seed from Sandhill years ago, which has become of my favorite tomatoes...usually about three dozen baseball-size toms per plant.
Let’s face it. They’re going to kill off most of the planet one way or another. GMO food is a good way.
Good thing I don’t chew gum. I had a bad case of C.Diff that lasted a year (my immune system is suppressed, and being on antibiotics frequently was the cause), and have some unpleasant chronic issues as a result.
You don’t mess around with that stuff. It’ll kill you; seriously. It’s almost like dysentery, and SO painful. I almost blacked out a few times.
Yes, it’s one of the side effects.
My first guess was aspartame.. That crap nearly killed me, and sadly , they are putting it in everything.
The interplay of SARS-CoV-2 and Clostridioides difficile infection
And now I'm wondering if the vaxxes could be part of the problem, too...
"...shellac, commercial resin marketed in the form of amber flakes, made from the secretions of the lac insect, a tiny scale insect, Laccifer lacca (see lac).
Shellac is a natural thermoplastic; that is, a material
that is soft and flows under pressure when heated but becomes rigid at room temperature."
Courtesy of www.brittanica.com
The linkage between this sugar substance and C-Diff has been suspected since 2018.....This supplement is sold by the pound by Amazon.
Jesse M
1.0 out of 5 stars Warning Trehalose linked with C Difficile illness
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2018
Package Quantity: 1
A recent study linked trehalose with the rise of C diff illness in hospitals. Worth looking into. Also realize they are suggesting to use 10g of this simple to carb to repace 5g of sugar. That sounds like the opposite of what a sweetener should be doing. Stevia for example can cut sugar in half without adding any carbs.
You have a real food growing operation there! My claim to fame is 15 fruit trees in a suburban setting. No livestock or bee hives are allowed. I sell the excess fruit cheap just to get it off my land before it rots. But with all the inflation going on I am going to increase fruit prices this coming season.
I hope you get free mulch from your local tree trimmers. I use this on my fruit trees plus some regular chem fertilizer. With slow release nitrogen. So I am half organic, I never use any sprays on the trees.
“That’s the blessed wording on Publix Ice Cream.”
Try their frozen yogurt. It tastes like ice cream. And of course has less fat.
Maybe this covid benefit is the MSM reason for bashing trehalose.
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