Sugar-rich foods exacerbate antibiotic-induced microbiome disruption.

Consuming sugar-rich foods during antibiotic treatment worsens gut microbiome disruption, increasing Enterococcus expansion and reducing microbial diversity.

• Why it matters: Understanding how diet influences microbiome resilience during antibiotics is crucial because microbiome disruption is linked to health complications, yet specific dietary impacts remain unclear.
• What they did: Researchers tracked 9,419 meals from 173 hospitalized patients undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation and used Bayesian analysis on 158 patients’ microbiome samples to assess dietary effects.
• The result: Findings show that sugar intake predicts greater microbiome dysbiosis, and mouse experiments confirm sucrose prolongs Enterococcus expansion, suggesting avoiding simple sugars may protect microbiota during antibiotics.