Urinary tract infections, or UTIs, are on the rise—and they may be becoming more dangerous. The overall disease burden  associated with UTIs  has increased by more than 68 percent between 1990 and 2019. At the same time, the bacteria that cause UTIs have developed resistance to common drugs.

Usually, UTIs are thought of as more of a painful nuisance rather than dangerous or fatal. But for an elderly patient or someone with multiple medical conditions, the antibiotics that fight the infection can be essential. Failing to get these antibiotics contributes to the deaths of  hundreds of thousands  of people every year globally. Even when they   aren't deadly, the  more than 400 million  annual worldwide UTI cases significantly strain limited medical resources.

"We know UTIs are a tremendous cause of morbidity and even mortality, but they are also a huge burden on the U.S. healthcare system—contributing to well over $2 billion annually in healthcare costs," says Michelle Van Kuiken, a urologist and a urogynecologist   at the University of California, San Francisco.

Working to ease this burden, scientists have been seeking to identify and understand lesser-known contributing factors. One culprit may come as a surprise: meat contaminated by Escherichia coli bacteria.