Study Shines Light on Harmless Bacteria on Fruits, Veggies

Title: Study Shines Light on Harmless Bacteria on Fruits, Veggies
Category: Health News
Created: 3/28/2013 2:36:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/29/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Your Pooch Could Raise Your Home's Bacteria Count

Study found more germs and a wider variety of bacterial types in houses with dogs

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 22 (HealthDay News) -- Man's best friend may bring millions more microscopic pals into the average human home, a new study suggests.

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado found that homes with dogs have more bacteria than other homes, including germs rarely found in households without dogs.

"We can tell whether you own a dog based on the bacteria we find on your television screen or pillowcase," study co-author Rob Dunn, associate professor of biology at NC State, said in a university news release.

The researchers involved 40 homes. Dunn and his colleagues wiped nine of the common surfaces in these residences -- TV screens, kitchen counters, toilet seats, refrigerators, pillowcases and door handles -- with sterile swabs to determine the types and amount of bacteria present.

The researchers found more than 7,700 types of bacteria in the homes, with unique groupings of bacteria depending on the location tested. For instance, bacteria found in refrigerators, on kitchen counters and on cutting boards were usually similar since they all related to food. The bacteria on doorknobs, pillowcases and toilet seats were also similar, but came more often from humans.

"We leave a microbial 'fingerprint' on everything we touch," Dunn explained. "Sometimes those microbes come from our skin, sometimes they're oral bacteria and as often as not they're human fecal bacteria."

But what about differences between houses? "The biggest difference we've found so far is whether you own a dog," Dunn said. "For example, there are bacteria normally found in soil that are 700 times more common in dog-owning households than in those without dogs."

The study showed bacteria in homes can be grouped into three "habitats" or categories: places people touch, places touched by food and places that collect dust. The researchers pointed out the bacteria found on pillowcases in two different homes is likely more similar than bacteria found in the same home but in another "habitat."

"This makes sense," Dunn added. "Humans have been living in houses for thousands of years, which is sufficient time for organisms to adapt to living in particular parts of houses. We know, for example, that there is a species that only lives in hot-water heaters. We deposit these bacterial hitchhikers in different ways in different places, and they thrive or fail depending on their adaptations."

The study was published May 22 in the journal PLOS ONE. The researchers plan to conduct a larger study involving another 40 homes as well as samples from a national survey of 1,300 homes across the country.

"The larger sample size will help us better understand the range of variables that influence these microbial ecosystems," Dunn said. "Does it matter if you have kids or live in an apartment? We expect the microbial populations of homes in deserts to be different from the populations of homes in Manhattan, but no one knows if that's true. We want to find out."

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'Nightmare' Bacteria Spreading in U.S. Hospitals, Nursing Homes: CDC

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- A "nightmare" bacteria that is resistant to powerful antibiotics and kills half of those it infects has surfaced in nearly 200 U.S. hospitals and nursing homes, federal health officials reported Tuesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 4 percent of U.S. hospitals and 18 percent of nursing homes had treated at least one patient with the bacteria, called Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), within the first six months of 2012.

"CRE are nightmare bacteria. Our strongest antibiotics don't work and patients are left with potentially untreatable infections," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a news release. "Doctors, hospital leaders and public health [officials] must work together now to implement the CDC's 'detect and protect' strategy and stop these infections from spreading."

"The good news," Frieden added at an afternoon teleconference, "is we now have an opportunity to prevent its further spread." But, he continued, "We only have a limited window of opportunity to stop this infection from spreading to the community and spreading to more organisms."

CRE are in a family of more than 70 bacteria called enterobacteriaceae, including Klebsiella pneumoniae and E. coli, that normally live in the digestive system.

In recent years, some of these bacteria have become resistant to last-resort antibiotics known as carbapenems.

Although CRE bacteria are not yet found nationwide, they have increased fourfold within the United States in the past decade, with most cases reported in the Northeast.

Health officials said they're concerned about the rapid spread of the bacteria, which can endanger the lives of patients and healthy people. For example, in the last 10 years, the CDC tracked one CRE from one health-care facility to similar facilities in 42 states.

One type of CRE, a resistant form of Klebsiella pneumoniae, has increased sevenfold in the past decade, according to the CDC's March 5 Vital Signs report.

"To see bacteria that are resistant is worrisome, because this group of bacteria are very common," said Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

Most CRE infections to date have been in patients who had prolonged stays in hospitals, long-term facilities and nursing homes, the report said.

The bacteria kill up to half the patients whose bloodstream gets infected and are easily spread from patient to patient on the hands of health-care workers, the CDC said.

Moreover, CRE bacteria can transfer their antibiotic resistance to other bacteria of the same type.

This problem is the result of the overuse of antibiotics, Siegel said. "The more you use an antibiotic, the more resistance is going to emerge," he said. "This is an indictment of the overuse of this class of antibiotic."

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C-Section, Formula May Disrupt 'Good' Gut Bacteria in Babies

Title: C-Section, Formula May Disrupt 'Good' Gut Bacteria in Babies
Category: Health News
Created: 2/11/2013 12:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 2/12/2013 12:00:00 AM

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C-Section, Formula May Disrupt 'Good' Gut Bacteria in Babies

By Amanda Gardner

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Feb. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Being born by cesarean section has been tied to higher risks for various health problems in children, and now a new study finds these babies also have fewer "good" bacteria in their digestive tract.

Similarly, babies who were exclusively or even partially formula-fed rather than breast-fed also had markedly different gut flora than babies who were breast-fed, according to the study appearing in the Feb. 11 issue of the CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"Since other [researchers] have found associations between cesarean section delivery or formula-feeding and infant gut changes and conditions like allergy [and] asthma, we speculate that our observations may lead to poor health in later life," said study senior author Anita Kozyrskyj.

The findings support current clinical practice guidelines which favor vaginal delivery whenever possible, added Kozyrskyj, who is research chair and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton.

About a third of all U.S. births occur by C-section, a number considered by many to be far too high and potentially harmful to both the child and the mother.

Vaginal delivery, among other advantages, fosters the growth of trillions of good bacteria that reside peacefully in the human body (collectively know as a person's microbiome), many of them in the intestine.

Meanwhile, C-sections interfere with the newborn's exposure to bacteria in the vaginal tract, bacteria that essentially trains the immune system to react appropriately to future events, according to study background information.

Mothers who have C-sections also tend to start breast-feeding later and require antibiotics, both of which could also affect the baby's microbiome.

In the new study, researchers analyzed DNA from fecal samples taken from 24 healthy infants in four Canadian provinces at 4 months of age.

Compared with children who had been born vaginally, children who had been delivered by C-section had less diverse flora, lower levels of Shigella bacteria and none of the bacteria known as Bacteroides at all.

"Shigella and Bacteroides are organisms picked up from mom and considered first colonizers," Kozyrskyj explained. "They lay the foundation for further microbes that become part of our normal microbiome."

Meanwhile, infants who were fed formula as opposed to breast milk also had less diverse flora and, in addition, had more of the bacteria Clostridium difficile, which had been associated with the development of allergies.

The study was a small one, but the researchers have collected fecal samples on 200 children and will be analyzing those in the future. They hope to eventually enroll 2,500 children in the study.

It's too soon to say definitively that the changes in the gut microbiome of children born by C-section will develop health problems. And it's possible that changes in the bacterial composition of the intestine as people age will compensate for diminished levels of bacteria in newborns, Kozyrskyj added.

A pediatric expert praised the new study.

"This is an important first step to make an association between intestinal bacteria and mode of delivery and type of feeding," said Dr. Michael Morowitz, a pediatric surgeon with Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Although follow-up studies will be needed, Morowitz added, "This is the latest piece of pretty convincing evidence that determinants very, very early in life can have an impact that lasts for months or years."

More information

Visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health for more on the Human Microbiome Project.

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