A dietary sugar approved as a food additive for use in foods from sushi and vegetables to ice cream may have fuelled the frequency and severity of a deadly superbug, scientists say. The findings showed that trehalose, used in foods as a sweetener, a stabiliser and thickener, as well as a flavour enhancer, enhanced the virulence of bacterium Clostridium difficile (C. difficile ) -- a bacterium that can cause life-threatening inflammation of the colon and diarrhoea.