https://www.everydayhealth.com/ibd/overconsumption-of-common-red-food-dye-may-lead-to-inflammatory-bowel-disease/

https://archive.is/Rzqvf

Overconsumption of Common Red Food Dye (Red 40 / Food Red 17) May Lead to Inflammatory Bowel Disease

A popular food coloring may raise the risk of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, a small animal study suggests.

Skittles, Doritos, Gatorade, Jell-O, Fruit Loops, and many other top-selling food products contain a synthetic dye called Allura Red AC that, consumed too frequently, may increase the likelihood of developing inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

A small study involving laboratory mice suggests that frequent and long-term exposure to the dye (also called FD&C Red 40 and Food Red 17) harms gut health and promotes inflammation.

Recently published in Nature Communications, the research found that the additive directly disrupts the gut barrier (which helps prevent bacterial intrusion) and increases the production of serotonin, a hormone and neurotransmitter found in the gut. This reaction changes the gut microbiome, leading to increased susceptibility to inflammatory bowel conditions, according to the report.

“What we have found is striking and alarming, as this common synthetic food dye is a possible dietary trigger for IBDs,” said the study’s senior author Waliul Khan, PhD, who researches gastrointestinal inflammation at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

“This research is a significant advance in alerting the public on the potential harms of food dyes that we consume daily,” added Dr. Khan in a press release.

For the 12-week experiment, six mice were fed a daily control diet without the dye, while six mice were given a similar diet with the dye. Khan and his collaborators observed a link between exposure to the red coloring and disturbances in the gut microbiome, which caused mild intestinal inflammation.

Furthermore, mice exposed early in life were found to have a “heightened susceptibility” to colitis or inflammation of the large intestine.

In a separate experiment, researchers intermittently exposed six mice to Red 40 via diet for just one day per week for 12 weeks. The study authors noted that intermittent consumption of the dye was “more akin to a typical human exposure” and did not influence susceptibility to intestinal inflammation.

FD&C Red 40 Food Dye Has Long Been a Suspected Health Hazard

This latest study contributes to a growing body of evidence suggesting that Red 40 could be harmful to health. As far back as the 1970s, health officials were warning that the ingredient could be a public health hazard, according to The New York Times.

One of the most common concerns surrounding artificial food dyes is its behavioral effect on children. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, eliminating artificial food dyes from the diets of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can help decrease their symptoms.

Major public health groups have concluded that the amount of the chemical dye in the average diet is too low to pose a threat. The World Health Organization writes, “dietary exposure to Allura Red AC for children and all other age groups does not present a health concern.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also approved Allura Red AC for human consumption.

The recommended daily intake should not exceed 3.2 milligrams per pound of a person’s body weight. For a person weighing about 130 pounds, a 32-ounce bottle of fruit punch Gatorade would be about 10 percent of that daily limit, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PDF).

The red dye is ubiquitous in processed foods. Food manufacturers use it in candies, snacks, soda, soft drinks, and cereals, as well as in condiments, ice creams, baked goods, fruit juices, and cosmetics.

What Causes Inflammatory Bowel Disease?

Khan stressed that the exact causes of IBD are still not fully understood, but several factors may be involved, including gut microbiota imbalances, immune system disruptions, and environmental elements.

Environmental triggers of IBD include the typical Western diet, which includes processed fats, red and processed meats, sugar, and a lack of fiber, according to Khan. He added that the Western diet and processed foods also include large amounts of various additives and dyes.

Based on this study’s results, Khan suggested that the link between commonly used food dyes and IBD warrants further exploration.

>>18166596

https://www.everydayhealth.com/ibd/frequent-antibiotic-use-tied-to-inflammatory-bowel-disease/

https://archive.is/mZKDG

Frequent Antibiotic Use Tied to Inflammatory Bowel Disease

People prescribed multiple rounds of antibiotics are more likely to develop IBD, a new study suggests.

People who receive multiple courses of antibiotics are at higher risk for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) — especially if they take these infection-fighting drugs to treat gastrointestinal pathogens.

For the study, researchers examined data on 6.1 million people 10 years and older in Denmark, including 5.5 individuals who received at least one course of antibiotics between 2000 and 2018. During the study period almost 53,000 people were newly diagnosed with IBD, including both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Compared with people who never used antibiotics, those who did were significantly more likely to develop IBD at all age groups in the study.

With each additional course of antibiotics, the risk of IBD climbed by at least another 10 percent, impacting all ages and rising more for those over 40, according to research published in Gut.

Among those 10 to 40 years old, their odds of developing IBD were 28 percent higher, and this increased risk climbed to about 48 percent after age 40.

The IBD risk was greatest one to two years after people took antibiotics specifically for gastrointestinal infections, the study also found.

“It's certainly possible that the underlying inflammatory response related to an infection may lead to the associated risk seen,” says lead study author Adam Faye, MD, an assistant professor of medicine and population health at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. “However, we do have some evidence that antibiotics themselves may contribute to onset of disease.”

For example, the study didn’t find any connection between IBD and one antibiotic — nitrofurantoin — which treats urinary tract infections. If the underlying infections could cause IBD then scientists would expect to see an increased risk even when people took nitrofurantoin, Dr. Faye says.The fact that this didn’t happen suggests that the issue is specific to the antibiotics people took, not the underlying infections, Faye adds.

Antibiotic Use Can Have a Detrimental Effect on the Gut Microbiome

While the study wasn’t designed to prove whether or how antibiotics might directly cause IBD, scientists suspect that it may be because they can impact the gut microbiome, the collection of bacteria and other microorganisms that live in your digestive tract and can influence your health. Nitrofurantoin — the antibiotic that doesn’t have much impact on the gut microbiome — was the only one that wasn’t linked to IBD in the study, Faye notes.

“The hypothesis, we think, is that antibiotics are altering the intestinal microbiome and leading to the development of IBD,” Faye says.

The two types of antibiotics with the highest IBD risk in the study — nitroimidazoles and fluoroquinolones — are both commonly prescribed for gastrointestinal infections. For nitroimidazoles, the increased risk climbed steadily with age and reached 61 percent for those 60 and older. With fluoroquinolones, the increased risk was greatest for people 40 to 60 years old, at 79 percent.

One limitation of the study is that researchers lacked data on why antibiotics were prescribed and detailed patient medical information — including whether people had any antibiotics administered during hospital stays. It’s also possible that some people in the study had undiagnosed IBD before they took antibiotics, the authors point out.

But the findings add to a growing body of evidence linking antibiotics to an increased risk of IBD. One study of more than 577,000 Danish children, for example, found that kids had a quadrupled risk of Crohn’s disease in the first three months after taking antibiotics. Another study of Swedish adolescents and adults found a more than doubled risk of Crohn’s disease after taking antibiotics and 74 percent higher risk of ulcerative colitis — with the IBD risk rising for each subsequent course of antibiotics.

>>18166612

The latest findings support the emerging theory that antibiotics might lead to IBD by destroying beneficial and healthy bacteria that normally lives in the gut, altering the composition of the microbiome or even letting harmful bacteria flourish, says Bincy Abraham, MD, a professor and director of the Fondren Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program at the Underwood Center for Digestive Disorders at Houston Methodist Hospital. This shift in the microbiome may cause inflammation that leads to IBD, says Abraham, who wasn’t involved in the new study.

“Antibiotics are quite important if one needs it and can help treat bacterial infections,” Abraham says. “What we do not want to do is to take antibiotics unnecessarily — for example, for a viral infection.”

Even the antibiotics with the highest risk of IBD — those that treat gastrointestinal pathogens — are sometimes necessary to avoid sepsis, a potentially fatal bloodstream infection, says Jonas Ludvigsson, MD, PhD, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and an IBD researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

“I think we should be careful using antibiotics because its use has drawbacks,” says Dr. Ludvigsson, who wasn’t involved in the new study. “But a severe gastrointestinal infection can lead to sepsis, and if one’s physician believes it is indicated, I would not hesitate to take the antibiotics.”