The study, whose results were published in the Journal of Hepatology and Digestive Diseases, said excessive sugar consumption disrupts cells that maintain colon health and causes inflammation in the intestine.
Commenting on the study, Professor of Immunology at the American University of Pittsburgh, Timothy Hand, said: “The prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease is increasing around the world, and it is higher in countries with industrial and urban lifestyles, whose citizens usually eat high-sugar meals.”
Hand added: “Excessive consumption of sugar is not good for several reasons, and our study adds new evidence to this, as this substance can be harmful to the intestine and the colon.”
During the study, researchers fed mice a standard or high-sugar diet and then simulated symptoms of IBD by exposing them to a colon-damaging chemical called DSS.
All mice fed the high-sugar diet died within nine days, while all animals fed the standard diet lived until the end of the 14-day experiment, according to the Scientific News Studyfinds website.
To find out why things were wrong, the team looked for answers inside the colon, which is normally lined with a layer of epithelial cells, which are frequently replenished by the division of stem cells, to maintain the healthy colon.
In some mice, the protective layer of cells is completely gone, filling the colon with blood and immune cells.
This indicates that sugar can directly affect the colon, preventing the stem cells that maintain this organ from dividing.
Hand summarized his study by saying, “We found that stem cells divide much more slowly in the presence of sugar and are likely to be very slow in repairing damage to the colon.
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