What is E.Coli Bacteria?

Author's Bio: Marcie Vaske, MS, LN, CNS

What is e coli and what can you do to protect yourself and others?

My name is Marcie Vaske and I'm a functional medicine nutritionist with Oswald Digestive Clinic.

At Oswald Digestive Clinic, I see a lot of clients who struggle with gut symptoms and some who have even had e coli infections.

If this sounds like you or someone you know, I'm going to link our website here where you can easily make an initial appointment.

In addition to that, I will link our free guide, which is 5 Ways to Improve Your Gut Health.

So without further ado, let's understand what is e coli and how can you protect yourself?

[Video Transcript Below Video - it is the same information]

So what is e coli bacteria?

E coli is actually a type of bacteria that is found in our lower intestinal tract in most warm blooded organisms.

And so that means in our gut as well.

Now, while most forms and strains of e coli are not an issue and don't create a lot of symptoms, and actually they can be beneficial, there are some strains that actually can become very symptomatic and harming to our health.

So let's understand:

What are the different strains of e coli?

Now, e coli, like I said, is a diverse type of bacteria that actually has 700 different strains of it.

Now, the most well-known strain of e coli, and the one that is potentially more dangerous is the strain of 0 5 7 hs, which has been found to cause many gastrointestinal symptoms and can be found in many things, which we'll talk about soon.

Now, while the strain of 0157hs is the most abundant and usually the most well-known, there is also a few other strains which are 0121 026, and 045, which can also create some pretty intense symptoms.

Now, it's important to understand the differences between these strains because then we can help to support symptoms and know what we're actually dealing with.

So you may be wondering, well, now I kind of know what e coli is. I know a couple of the more important strains to be watching out for, but

How does e coli spread?

And there's a few common ways that this happens.

1) Contaminated food or water.

2) Direct contact with an animal that has e coli or their feces.

3) Person to person transmission.

And this is usually found in poor hygienic places or where things haven't been kept clean.

Well, and another common place that e coli can spread is going to be in contaminated water areas, meaning swimming pools or even in recreational bodies of water.

So if we're swimming in that, we can easily come in contact with e coli and then of course have an infection.

When there has been many breakouts in the US of e coli, we've usually seen it in undercooked meat.

You're going to hear about that more frequently as well as in unpasteurized dairy products.

So just watching out for what kind of dairy products you're consuming as well and contaminated waters.

So now that we know what strains to look for, how it is transmitted from one person to another or from animal or water to a person, let's think about:

What are some of the symptoms of e coli?

Now, symptoms of e coli can really range from being pretty mild to quite severe, and so symptoms look like diarrhea, and maybe even oftentimes they'll be bloody diarrhea coupled with abdominal cramping as well as nausea and vomiting.

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Some individuals who are infected with e coli will even present with fever.

And of course, with the amount of diarrhea or possible vomiting that you're having, you could become very dehydrated.

Now, there are some cases with e coli in particularly the 0157hs strain that you can get quite sick.

And we've seen in that instance, people who have that infection can also have something where they become, they can lead to kidney disease or failure even as well as neurological problems.

And so catching these symptoms of e coli very quickly is going to be your best bet.

And if you have an acute affection, you need to go in and have that checked out immediately to make sure to understand what it really is and as well get treatment for that.

Now, there are going to be some individuals who are more at risk for even having an e coli affection, which are usually individuals that are elderly or even the young, and also those who have a weakened immune system.

These individuals may contract e coli and it can kind of turn into something bigger because they already are at a weakened state. So because we know the way that e coli is transmitted, it's an easier to then help prevent it.

How To Prevent e coli infection

And some of those steps are going to be just counter interactive of what we understand of the transmission and the way that e coli is transmitted.

Cook Meat Well

So of course, if it's transmitted through undercooked meat, what would we likely want to do?

Make sure that you're cooking your meat thoroughly. Make sure that it reaches the appropriate temperature in the middle so that it is properly cooked.

And e coli is, if there was any in there, will be killed.

2. Avoid Cross Contamination

And of course, avoid any cross contamination between raw and cooked foods, keeping those things separate, especially meat products, because that's a lot of times where that e coli can be.

And if you're cooking your hamburgers, especially now in the summertime, we're going to be grilling a lot and we're putting raw meat next to maybe some raw vegetables.

You want to make sure that there's plenty of space and that there's not cross contamination. And of course with that, making sure that all your produce is well washed.

And there's simple tricks for washing produce. I know when we pick it up in the store, we think, oh, it looks pretty clean.

But really, it's best when you bring it home to do a thorough wash. And you can do simple things like using just a little bit of grape seed fruit extract, put a couple drops in a water and just rinse your broccoli off, rinse your apples off, rinse any kind of produce that you're going to be consuming, and that can easily help to kill any of the e coli.

3. Choose Pasteurized Dairy

And of course, as I said, e coli can be found in on pasteurized dairy.

So you want to be sure that what you're drinking is pasteurized as well as dairy, but also juices.

4. Practice Good Hygiene

And because e coli can be spread through just in poor hygienic places or hygienic places, you want to make sure that you're really washing your hands.

We talk about washing hands all the time, but this is just one more reason why we want to do it.

So making sure that you wash your hands thoroughly, especially after you've used the bathroom or you're handling food, washing it for, I think it's, you say the ABCs, right?

Or you count 20, to hand wash and making sure that they're clean. Of course, in addition to hand washing, you want to make sure that the utensils you're using are sanitized as well as the countertop that you might be cooking or chopping on just to prevent that spread of this e coli strain.

And of course, back to just better hygiene practices, washing hands, but that also means if you're coughing or blowing your nose, making sure that you're using a tissue and covering your mouth when you cough.

This can also help with these e coli strains.

5. Drink Clean Water

And also, another really good way to prevent e coli is making sure that your water that you are drinking on a daily basis is clean.

Now, most city water plants do the cleaning themselves, but if you're in a rural area and you have your own water supply, making sure that you're testing that just to be sure that there's no runoff from maybe a cattle farm miles away that's getting into your water stream that is spreading e coli.

And so it's just taking little precautions, just kind of common sense type things just to be sure that what you're drinking is good water.

So now that we know what to look for in terms of symptoms, how e coli is spread, if you come in contact with e coli and start having symptoms, what should you do next?

And so what are some treatment options for e coli?

Now, depending on the severity of your symptoms, the first step is going to make sure that you have supportive care in the way of making sure you're very hydrated and even intaking electrolytes.

Now, if it's a very severe case and you've been very sick, it is going to be best to go in to make sure and get tested and possibly having to take an antibiotic.

And this is not always needed, and in some cases has been kind of controversial.

And so making sure, depending on what your results are and in terms of what your symptoms are, making the best choice for yourself at that time.

Now, I do see a lot of clients who even have residual e coli when we do stool testing.

And that doesn't mean there's an acute infection, but that just means that there's a very low grade amount of dysbiotic e coli in their digestive system, and we can easily use antimicrobials to rid that in their gut.

And so just kind of keeping in mind that even though we take antibiotics, it doesn't always get rid of the pathogen.

And sometimes if they're totally not needed in terms of if your symptoms aren't horrible and you're okay, but always be cautious.

And if you're thinking, I really need to get this checked out, then that's what you need to do.

So as you've learned today, e coli is a very serious pathogen.

It can create many uncomfortable symptoms and even lead to some pretty severe issues for some individuals with weakened immune systems.

And so just by watching your environment, washing your hands, drinking clean water, and cooking your meats really well, you should be good to go.

So I hope that this was helpful for you, and thanks for watching our channel today.

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If you'd like to explore any of this information further or obtain an individualized nutrition plan, you can schedule an initial appointment at our clinic. We also take insurance and some of our clients get full coverage, which is great.