Warning Signs Of A C. Difficile Infection

Weight Loss

An individual with a C. Difficile infection in their colon may experience dramatic weight loss as a symptom of their illness. An average healthy adult has between twenty and forty liters of water in their body at any given time. The mass of water is around two pounds per liter, making between forty and eighty pounds of an individual's body mass to be water weight. Water is lost from the body in several ways, including excessive urination, excessive sweating, and watery stools. A healthy individual only loses a fifth of a liter of fluid per day through the excretion of stool. An individual affected by a C. difficile infection has diarrhea between ten and fifteen times a day on average, which can equate to a loss of over ten pounds of body mass over just a few days. In addition, calories and glucose that would be used by healthy cells to produce energy are also being used up by the C. difficile bacteria that have colonized in an affected individual's large intestine. This mechanism causes the perpetuation of weight loss because the bacteria can cause an individual to have a negative energy balance.

Get more details on the symptoms associated with a C. difficile infection now.