NSAIDs (Anti-Inflammatories) LINKED TO C. DIFF!
GASTROENTEROLOGY NERD ALERT:
NSAIDs (anti-inflammatories) LINKED TO C. DIFF!
Check out this article in Science Daily about a recent study published in mBio potentially linking anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs, like aspirin, advil, aleve, motrin, ibuprofen, and naproxen) to the opportunistic bacterial infection called C. difficile (a.k.a. “C. diff).
For those of you unfamiliar with C. diff, consider yourself lucky! For your education, C. diff is an opportunistic bacteria that can cause severe colon inflammation, that can be life-threatening. Antibiotic use is a well known risk factor, but the link to NSAIDs is new information!
“Clostridium difficile causes the most common and most dangerous hospital-born infections in the United States and around the world. People treated with antibiotics are at heightened risk because those drugs disturb the microbial balance of the gut, but observational studies have also identified a link between severe C. difficile infections and use of NSAIDs, or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.”
“The researchers followed two groups of antibiotic-treated mice for one week after infection with C. difficile. One group had been treated with an NSAID called indomethacin prior to infection, and the other hadn’t. Only about 20 percent of the mice treated with the NSAID survived to the end of the observation period, compared to about 80 percent of the mice that hadn’t been exposed to the NSAID.
Aronoff and his collaborators determined that even brief exposure to the NSAID prior to C. difficile inoculation increased the severity of infections and shortened survival. Further cellular and genetic analyses revealed that the NSAID exposure altered the gut microbiota and depleted the production of prostaglandins, hormone-like substances known to play an important role in gastrointestinal health. Those observations align with previous studies reporting that NSAIDs can cause or exacerbate an inflammatory disease called colitis, also by inhibiting the body’s production of prostaglandins.
In the new study, the researchers conclude that NSAID-driven changes worsened C. difficile infections by impairing epithelial cells — the main defense system in the intestine against infectious taxa — and by disturbing the normal immune response. They studied at the impact of only one NSAID, indomethacin, but Aronoff says he thinks the findings might extend to other common NSAIDs, including ibuprofen and aspirin, since they all have roughly the same biological mechanism.”
As mentioned many times before on our blog and social media posts, there is SO MUCH to learn about the gut microbiome’s influence on our health – from gut infections like C. diff, to weight management, to depression/anxiety, to gut symptoms and colon cancer risks. I eagerly anticipate learning all that science will have to offer on this topic in the decades to come.
Please call 224.407.4400 or visit compgihealth.com to schedule an appointment. We are eager to share all we know about the impact the gut microbiome may have on your health and wellness.