http://goo.gl/bUPw60
Researchers at the University of Chicago have shown that after a long stay in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) only a handful of pathogenic microbe species remain behind in patients' intestines. The team tested these remaining pathogens and discovered that some can become deadly when provoked by conditions that mimic the body'sstress response to illness.
"I have watched patients die from sepsis - it isn't their injuries or mechanical problems that are the problem," says John Alverdy, a gastrointestinal surgeon and one of two senior authors on the study.
"Our hypothesis has always been that the gut microflora in these patients are very abnormal, and these could be the culprits that lead to sepsis," he says.
The current study supports this idea. Alverdy and Olga Zaborina, a microbiologist, wanted to know what happens to the gut microbes of ICU patients, who receive repeated courses of multiple antibiotics to ward off infections.
They found that patients with stays longer than a month had only one to four types of microbes in their gut, as measured from fecal samples - compared to about 40 different types found in healthy volunteers.