Twenty to 50 percent of all critically ill patients contract potentially deadly infections during their stay in the intensive care unit or in hospital after being in the ICU – markedly increasing the risk of death.
A study by UCalgary involved 51 patients newly admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at FMC. Patients were studied over the first week of acute critical illness. The research showed that the gut microbiota and systemic immunity work together as a dynamic “metasystem,” in which problems with gut microbes and immune system dysfunction are associated with significantly increased rates of hospital-acquired infections.
The study published in Nature Medicine found that patients who experienced an abnormal increase in the growth of this common bacteria, called a bloom, were at the highest risk of severe infections.
