Parkinsons MAY Begin In The Human Gut (More Exciting Results from Microbiome Work)
So this is a story that is popping up all over the place today, and for good reason, it’s fascinating! In a recent article published in the journal Cell, titled “Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease.” In this article the researchers describe how they (in a MOUSE model system) found the motor dysfunction of mice with Parkinsons disease could be transferred to healthy mice by transplanting the intestinal bacteria from the Parkinsons mice into the intestines of the healthy mice. Lets break all of this down a little bit.
# What is Parkinson’s Disease? Parkinson’s Disease is a neurodegenerative disorder effecting primarily the motor system (aka the part of your nervous system that controls the functioning of your skeletal muscles). The symptoms of this disease have a slow onset and begin with shaking, a hunched posture, a slowing of your movements and difficulties in walking.
Source : The Posture of Someone With Parkinson’s Disease
As the disease progresses, difficulties thinking and forming memories (dementia) occur. The cause of Parkinson’s disease is unknown, however doctors speculate that both “genetic and environmental factors” are involved (that’s doctor speak for we have no clue what the precise causative agent is). This video does a good job describing what the symptoms are, and how doctors look for them, it’s quite informative:
While we don’t understand the root cause, we do know why the symptoms occur. Parkinson’s disease symptoms occur because neurons in the area of the brain responsible for controlling movement become impaired. These neurons are responsible for producing a compound called dopamine and when they get messed up, they produce less dopamine. Dopamine is used by the brain to transport signals from one region of the brain to other regions, and when there is less available, the ways that the nerves activate or “fire” change. The changes to the firing patterns leads to the difficulties people have when moving around.
Is there a cure for Parkinson’s Disease?
No, however people who have Parkinson’s disease do not usually die any earlier then people without the disease. They just have a much lower quality of life for those years.
There is a Link Between Intestinal Bacteria and Neurological Development and Certain Disorders
Malfunctioning neurons are the main cause of a wide variety of diseases in humans. One such cause for neurological malfunction is amyloidosis which is the term given for clumping of proteins which in turn coat parts of the cell and mess with cellular activities. There are a variety of amyloid proteins, and malfunctioning of these proteins lead to a variety of neurological diseases you are likely familiar with including Alzheimers, Huntingtons and Parkinson's(DING DING DING!!!). (Citation)
In Parkinson’s disease the amyloid protein that aggregates is thought to be α-synuclien (αSyn) (Citation) , it clumps inside of neurons and those involved in dopamine responses are particularly succeptible. So the clumping of α-synuclien is one such way that the dopamine producing neurons lose their functionality. As we discussed above, this results in less dopamine, and less dopamine means Parkinson’s symptoms.
But how are gut bacteria involved? Well a lot of research has been published recently showing how the presence of certain bacteria are necessary for development of the nervious system (in mouse models). In one case reserachers found that mice treated with an antibiotic targeting speficic bacteria had changes to the neurons that develop and form in the hippocampus area of the brain (area responsible for memory and spacial awareness) (Citation).
This shows a link between bacteria in the body (microbiome constituents) and function of the nervous system (which is quite surprising to me!).
So, Please Tell Me About This New Article @justtryme90!
Okay, glad you asked with such enthusiasm! In this article the authors were looking at the effect that gut bacteria had on α-synuclien. They did this by creating mice which produce the human α-synuclien protein (the one that when it blobs together leads to the impairment of brain neurons, and reduced dopamine production). These mice which express a bunch of the α-synuclien all show parkinson’s symptoms (movement difficulties etc.) What the researchers found was that if they treated the mice with antibiotics such that the gut microbiome was depleted, the amount of α-synuclien clumping was reduced, and with it the amount of difficulties of the mice to move around. Basically they observed that the gut microbiota is required to generate the negative changes to movement (Parkinson’s symptoms) in these mice.
They discuss a number of possibilities for why this might be. One interesting discussed reason was inflammation. It is known that clumping of α-synuclien is enhanced by an inflammatory environment in the body. Removal/reduction of the gut microbiota from these mice may have reduced the inflammatory state of the mice (the gut microbiome is known to increase inflammation through production of short-chain fatty acids (Citation). Short-chain fatty acids can cross the blood prain barrier and potentially impact nerve cells directly, but they also increase inflammation through increasing production of cytokines by brain cells called microglia. Cytokines are important signaling compounds that play a role in the inflammatory response of the body. So the authors logical pathway here was, gut bacteria produce more short-chain fatty acids, which in turn increase cytokine production and inflammation, and the increase inflammation results in clumping of α-synuclien, leading to Parkinson’s symptoms.
The other really interesting result from this paper was that gut bacteria from parkinson’s patients transplanted into a succeptible α-synuclien enhanced mouse resulted in those mice having more difficulties moving around, then were mice transplanted with gut bacteria from healthy non parkinson’s patients. This is also quite surprising, and taken together with the previously discussed result (removing bacteria reduces symptoms) seems to indicate that their truly is a role between bacteria present in the gut and parkinson’s disease!
TL;DR Breakdown Summary
Parkinson’s disease results in a drastically reduced quality of life by causing a variety of problems with moving ones body. In a mouse model researchers showed that the difficulties in moving around seen with Parkinson’s were reduced when the amount of gut bacteria were destroyed by antibiotics, and that the gut bacteria from parkinson’s sufferers could make movement more difficult for mice when transplanted. Illustrating a direct link between the gut microbiome and Parkinson’s disease symptoms.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_disease
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/parkinsons-disease/basics/definition/con-20028488
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25588378
https://nihseniorhealth.gov/parkinsonsdisease/whatcausesparkinsonsdisease/01.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1003013/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microglia
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Wow, this is awesomely promising news!
My grandfather suffered from Parkinson's for many of his declining years. It would have been wonderful to have this information back then. I think we might have tried some antibiotic protocols, maybe colloidal silver?
Thanks for a great article!
Thank you for reading! Sorry to hear about your grandfather's sufferings, watching someone decline with Parkinson's is hard (similarly hard to watching someones mind deteriorate with alzheimers). Work on these topics is very important IMO (alzheimers hits close to home for me). Yet, Its obvious that a lot more work needs to be done to better understand the results published here, and the authors point out in their discussion that the network of potential relationships here is very very large. This is certainly a validation that this is an avenue worth pursuing for sure!
From reading your article, I gather that this also may have application to other neurological disorders. My sister passed from ALS, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease... Sadly, she was stubborn about attending to any "alternative" approaches to medicine, and so it might not have helped even if she had known...
This article is not an endorsement of alternative approaches to medicine, nor self medicating. I just wanted to show and explain the thinking of the researchers in more general terms for people. The article is justification for significant further work in this area, but is not justification for treatments at this point IMO.
The inflammation hypothesis is just that, a hypothetical explanation for the observations made about the effects that changing microbiome had. It seems like a logical line of thinking, but now someone needs to prove it!
Hi, @justtryme90 - I understand that and did not mean to imply that in any way.
I believe health is each person's individual responsibility. I appreciate the article and meant no reflection on your intentions at all.
Thanks! I understand now :)
There are some anecdotal reports of benefits received from the cannabis industry related to managing ALS.
"Within 10 days, Bob had his right arm back, and could even throw a football. His overall condition improved tremendously. He stopped using all pharmaceuticals, including the codeine and aspirin he needed for pain. Unlike pills, the oil had a number of remarkable side effects. The high blood pressure Bob had struggled with for years completely dropped, to the point where he had to control his oil intake to make sure it did not get too low.
Indeed, CB1 activation is linked with hypotensive effects. Nummular eczema, asthma, and a herpes infection also all disappeared. Scientific studies indicate the potential of cannabinoids to benefit these conditions through broncodilatory, anti-inflammatory, and anti-viral capabilities. Also, a January 2015 review implicated cannabinoids in the potential treatment of many neuroinflammatory disorders, including ALS."
http://illegallyhealed.com/keeping-als-at-bay-with-cannabis/
While the above was anecdotal, it seems to rhyme with an HHS patent in preparation for something fishy...
""The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia. "
http://www.google.com/patents/US6630507
Interestingly enough, Parkinson's is in there too :)
Here's a former police chief with Parkinson's using CBD to cure his symptoms on camera: http://www.realfarmacy.com/parkinsons-disease-cbd/
His name seems to check out although I didn't dig heavily.
It doesn't necessarily have to be alternative medicine. Good wholesome foods can have a magical healing capacity. I'm trying to get my gut right and doing so primarily with a Mediterranean/Paleo diet, bone broth, plantain (not the banana) and sprouted seeds. This seems to be working great but I'm constantly trying new things like fermented foods.
If Parkinson's is truly gut flora based, the antibiotic treatments could complicate this condition based on new research:
"The biodiversity of the bacteria that form the gut microbiota, according to the results, decreases during the treatment to the point of reaching its minimum 11 days after the beginning. However, at the end of the treatment, the situation is reversed and the patient presents a bacterial population similar to the first.
Although the research "shows for the first time that gut bacteria presents a lower capacity to produce proteins, as well as deficiencies in key activities, during and after the treatment," explains Moya. Specifically, the study suggests that the gut microbiota shows less capacity to absorb iron, digest certain foods and produce essential molecules for the organism."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130109081145.htm
"Blaser also points out that not only does the individual use of antibiotics cause permanent changes in the gut flora, but that infants born to women given antibiotics during pregnancy, or the 30% of children delivered via cesarean section, may be starting life with a significantly altered and insufficient level of friendly gut flora. (2) This is a serious concern because lack of diversity in friendly gut bacteria has been shown to contribute to a large number of diseases and complications."
https://chriskresser.com/the-high-price-of-antibiotic-use-can-our-guts-ever-fully-recover/
Parkinson's is not (at least based upon this) gut flora based, they just contribute in some way. There also might be many pathways upon which to reach the same endpoint (like cancer for example).
Really, in spite of this interesting and other recent interesting publications much of the story of Parkinson's still remains unknown.
It seems to me the lack of good bacteria contribution is the issue although I am no expert. You have concentrations (sometimes exceedingly high) of round-up found in vaccines, medication, food supply, water and potentially many other areas that defeat the good ones. Then we have an overuse of antibiotics throughout our farming and dairy industry that is only now being addressed (although I question what they are not telling us) topped off with an epidemic of over-prescribing of antibiotics by doctors that vanquish the possibility of good bacteria contributing. To me there is no question where the problems lie. I'm rather passionate about this subject, please pardon me if my tone here seems harsh.
As for addressing the issue, the patent by HHS is the most telling. If you venture down that path I bet you find remarkable things. Or, do the laws still prevent you from researching in this direction?
Thanks for your help and contributions. We need more folks like you working on these things.
To be honest I have read only a few studies on Glyphosate but AFIK the consensus is that unless in extremely high concentrations it poses no danger to either humans nor bacteria. I don't have many opinions on it, other than that it doesn't particularly cause me concern.
Antibiotic use by the farm industry IS of a concern to me, but I feel it's being addressed. Maybe not as quickly as I would like but concerns have been voiced collectively by the scientific community and changes are being made.
You are quite right that antibiotic use does change microbiome composition, however one question to keep on your mind with regards to that is. What is a good microbiome composition? What differentiates a "good" from a "bad" microbiome. The answer to that question, is "we don't know." I attended a seminar about eight or nine months ago on whole genome analysis of the microbiome, and there is incredible diversity of the bacteria and ratios of the bacteria in both healthy and people with various diseases. To this point, as far as I saw we (the scientific community) don't have a clear picture as to what constitutes an ideal biome.
I am unfamiliar with what patent you are referring to, can you clarify?
I have a lot of friends working on projects in quite a variety of areas, I know of a handful of projects that are truly fascinating and I am looking forward to seeing them get published. There are a lot of scientists out there, but as you likely well know, research is incredibly expensive (gosh reagents alone to make and test stuff are insanely over priced) and so with more people working on these things comes the need for more ways to fund the work. So while I (of course) agree and encourage people to get into research, I also know that to the outside world science often seems like a hole that you throw money into...
Be careful what you read regarding round-up, funding behind the studies is easy to hide. The industry likes tout their results from the active ingredient only and not the remaining additives that combine to do greater harm. I've seen this information out there but you typically have to go outside of the US to find it.
Good to hear we are working toward that area and it sounds like there are a ton of variable to take into consideration.
Here's the patent I posted in a reply above:
""The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia. "
http://www.google.com/patents/US6630507
That's the main problem I see, the research funding comes from corporate and government interests with hidden agenda, IMHO. Hmmm... there has to be a blockchain solution for this.... right? This is more in my area :)
Very interesting. I will need to read more in depth on this. I have found that it is also interesting that nicotine and caffeine users seem to have a reduction in developing Parkinson's symptoms. Whether that has to do with the bacteria or is on a more central nervous system level I would have to investigate further. We would have to be careful with mice vs human studies as well. The metabolism of mice is quite different. A perfect example of that would be the old saccharin studies showing bladder cancer in mice but has never showed that to be true with human studies. Great work here sir.
Indeed the mouse model is far from perfect, however it is an excellent tool for at least providing some evidence that a line of experimentation is worth more work. I decided to write this because I saw several popular science sites writing about it, but they really didn't go into any details. I wanted to try to explain this a bit more than I was seeing elsewhere, provide people with a bit more of a reason to want to look into things further.
Thanks for reading man, I really appreciate it!
Well, definitely worth some serious research to reduce the symptoms and increase the quality of life. Could turn into something to help the sufferers while an actual cure can be sought.
I fully agree! If their is potential to help people live better, easier lives then we should work on it. :)
Poor research doctors can't get any respect:
It means that they haven't found a single definitive cause - there may not be one single cause. They have eliminated many possible causes. But some still show a possible link, just like this article. I'm glad scientists are exploring many possible links, even though they don't get The Answer on any of their studies. Go, science!
I know what it means, I say things like that in my own publications. :) Yeah, science is incremental, we don't need to get The Answer, we just need to get an answer, then explore that further!
I don't doubt that you know what it means. But the skeptics already do such a good job of saying that scientists don't have any idea of what's going on. And it's so easy for non-scientists to buy into that - especially if we reinforce that idea. (And don't even get me started on scientists saying they 'believe' something, rather than talking about following the evidence.)
Having seen with my own eyes the decline of a person I liked a lot, this can only bring hope! I hope fundings will follow to continue these researches...
Great post! Fix the gut and everything else falls inline. Herbicide laced food isn't helping.
"Glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup were shown in this study to suppress the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, leading to the overgrowth of extremely pathogenic bacteria."
http://www.gmoevidence.com/dr-kruger-roundup-suppresses-growth-of-beneficial-gut-bacteria/
Great information that I am very interested in learning more about.
Since getting Meningitis and being diagnosed with Hydrocephalus I have a great interest in knowing more about this!
Also, Human health does start in the gut after all.
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Thank you for reading! Glad you enjoyed it and found it informative. :)
Thanks for compiling this useful information!
Thanks for reading and your kind words!