Too Much Zinc Increases Risk for Clostridium difficile

Researchers found that mice given a high-zinc diet were more likely to experience Clostridium difficile infection at lower antibiotic doses.
While Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is usually related to antibiotic-related disruption to gut microbiota, cases of non-antibiotic associated CDI indicate that other factors can influence it.   Since dietary metals are known to influence infection susceptibility, researchers exposed C. difficile-colonised mice to diets with three different levels of zinc for five weeks.   They found that gut microbiota were significantly altered and showed decreased diversity in mice fed a diet containing excess zinc. No such change was observed in mice fed a diet with low or normal amounts of zinc.   Mice given the high-zinc diet were also susceptible to CDI at lower antibiotic doses and experienced more severe disease than mice given less zinc.   Reporting in Nature Medicine (online, 26 September 2016)[1], the researchers suggest that limiting excess dietary zinc might therefore reduce the risk of CDI or morbidity in high-risk patients.