Less Sugar with the Antibiotics
As more and more people recognize the risks of antibiotics’ effects on our gut bacteria, this article offers one more tool to protect our colon bacteria when antibiotics are unavoidable. While natural therapies can boost our immunity and fight some mild to moderate infections, at times severe infections just need a big hammer with antibiotics. In these cases, we advise patients on probiotics and fermented foods before and after those antibiotic courses. Now this study suggests that lowering sugar intake during and after the round of therapy can protect our gut bacteria.
The News
In general, we want a wide variety of bacteria to live in our GI tracts, mainly our colons. This variety keeps more harmful bacteria from gaining in numbers and preserves a diversity of functions we need from the good ones. Antibiotics are intended to kill harmful bacteria somewhere in our bodies, but they can also knock off good bacteria as they pass through our GI tract. In this study, researchers focused on cancer patients who tend to receive a lot of antibiotics.
They followed the diets of 173 hospitalized cancers patients and monitored for changes in their gut bacteria. For every 100 grams of sugar intake in the 2 days before antibiotics, their gut bacteria diversity declined 21% (measured as ‘alpha diversity’). They also looked at mouse experiments and found that dietary sucrose increased levels of a harmful bacteria by 16-fold on day 3, but 33-fold by day 6.
What To Do
While more research into non-cancer populations and those outside hospital settings is needed, recommending a lower sugar diet for 1-2 weeks when our patients need antibiotics is a pretty safe recommendation. Helping our patients live healthier, more abundant lives requires both reactive therapy to restore and proactive approaches to prevent.
Related Articles
Original Article:
Anqi Dai, Annamaria Ballweg, William Jogia, Madhumitha Rangesa, Peter A. Adintori, Mirae Baichoo, Tyler Funnell, Teng Fei, Nicholas R. Waters, Abrielle Swartz, Sukanya Sahu, Brianna Gipson, Sandeep S. Raj, Eiko Hayase, Zoe Pierce, Kenton Wu, Natalie Smith, Justin Neuberger, Adam Warren, Marina Burgos da Silva, Oriana Miltiadous, Corrado Zuanelli Brambilla, Marissa Lubin Buchan, Tatanisha K. Peets, Ana Gradissimo, Luigi A. Amoretti, Caichen Duan, Chenzhen Zhang, Fanny Matheis, Alexis P. Sullivan, John B. Slingerland, Annelie G. Clurman, Daniel G. Brereton, Paul A. Giardina, Antonio L. C. Gomes, Abigail J. Johnson, Dan Knights, Robert R. Jenq, Kate A. Markey, Miguel-Angel Perales, Sergio A. Giralt, Marcel R. M. van den Brink, Jonas Schluter, Jonathan U. Peled. Sugar-rich foods exacerbate antibiotic-induced microbiome disruption. Nature, 2026; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11077-3
Thanks to Science Daily:
NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “Taking antibiotics? Sugar may be making the damage worse.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 October 2026. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261007042059.htm>.
Disclaimer: These and other articles on our website are intended for educational purposes only. They do not constitute a patient-provider relationship and should not replace your current medical provider’s guidance. You are responsible for your healthcare decisions in collaboration with a trusted provider.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Dr. Eric Potter graduated from Vanderbilt Medical School and then went on to specialize in internal medicine (adult) and pediatric care, spending significant time and effort in growing his medical understanding while caring for patients from all walks of life.
