Boston (SmartAboutHealth) - A new study has found that Clostridium difficile or C. difficile is becoming very common in U.S. hospitals.

The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology released a new report after looking at data from 650 hospitals in the U.S.

The study looked at all patients diagnosed with C. difficile from the various hospitals.

They found a huge spike in how common this bacteria is, which often leads to diarrhea.

They found that 13 out of every 1,000 hospital patients were infected with the C. difficile bacteria, a number 20 times greater than expected.

The study will be published in the American Journal of Infection Control.