Written by Dennis Thompson
HealthDay reporter
TUESDAY, November 1, 2022 (HealthDay News) — COVID-19 is known to mess with a person’s lungs, and it can have long-term effects on the brain.
Doctors have now discovered another way the coronavirus is harming your health – through your gut.
COVID infection can reduce the number of bacterial species in the gut, creating an opportunity for dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria to thrive, according to a new study in the journal. Nature Communications.
“Our findings suggest that coronavirus infection directly interferes with the healthy balance of microbes in the gut, putting patients at greater risk in these conditions,” said study co-author Ken Cadwell, a microbiologist at Grossman College of Medicine in New York City. the operation”.
An unhealthy gut leaves a person vulnerable to life-threatening diarrhea from harmful bacteria such as Jim Saab. It can also cause other health problems such as bloating and acid reflux.
The researchers said the study is the first to show that Covid disease alone harms the gut microbiome. Before now, doctors suspected that using antibiotics to treat COVID was harming gut bacteria.
An analysis of nearly 100 men and women hospitalized with COVID in 2020 found that most patients had low gut microbiome diversity. In fact, the researchers found that a full quarter was controlled by a single type of bacteria.
At the same time, the population of many potentially harmful microbes has increased. Some antibiotic-resistant bacteria enter the bloodstream in 20% of patients.
“Now that we’ve discovered the source of this bacterial imbalance, clinicians can better identify coronavirus patients who are most at risk of developing secondary bloodstream infections,” Cadwell said in a NYU news release.
The results were published on 1 November.
more information
The Cleveland Clinic offers more about gut health.
Source: NYU Grossman School of Medicine, press release, November 1, 2022
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