What role does gut bacteria play in Parkinson’s disease?

January 20, 2021

Important Points:

Parkinson’s disease
Gut bacteria
Gastrointestinal

What role does gut bacteria play in Parkinson’s disease?

Gut bacteria are tied to how the brain functions in Parkinson’s disease. In a California Institute of Technology study, stool from Parkinson’s patients was transplanted into sterile mice, and it produced the disease’s symptoms. Researchers point to alpha-synuclein, a protein found in both the gut and the brain, as the link.

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Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurologic disorder marked by tremors and stiff muscles. It affects more than 10 million people worldwide. Almost 200 years have passed since Parkinson’s disease was first identified as an observable medical condition. Yet today, we still do not know the exact cause of this disabling condition.

However, we have made some progress in identifying some risk factors associated with Parkinson’s. In a recent study published by the California Institute of Technology, researchers identified a new possible cause of Parkinson’s disease. They found a link between gut bacteria and how the brain functions.

Researchers took stool samples from patients with Parkinson’s disease and transplanted them into sterile mice. This produced the symptoms of the disease in a previously healthy subject. Researchers hypothesize that this may be due to a protein called alpha-synuclein (αSyn). This protein is present in both the brain and the gut of patients with Parkinson’s disease. It may play a key role in the development of the disease.

This study seems to confirm what other researchers noticed long ago. Gut problems have always been associated with Parkinson’s. Constipation, ulcers, and bloating are significantly more frequent in people with the disease. This points to a bigger role for gut problems in the disease pathophysiology (how the disease works in the body). In fact, a previous study looked at people who had their vagus nerve severed as treatment for a gastric ulcer. It showed they had a lower chance of developing Parkinson’s. This is not that surprising, since 70 percent of the peripheral nervous system innervates (supplies nerves to) the gut. With this in mind, the nervous system and the gastrointestinal system may not be as far apart as we first thought. Evidence of their strong link keeps mounting. So understanding this relationship has now sparked a lot of interest.

The research is promising, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Mice experiments may not translate to human test subjects, but the researchers are optimistic. Hopefully, once this hypothesis is proven and better understood, it will pave the way for more effective treatments for Parkinson’s disease. These treatments would aim at modifying gut bacteria instead of being directed at the brain.

Statistics on Parkinson’s

http://www.pdf.org/en/parkinson_statistics

Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease

http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)31590-2

Parkinson’s disease may start in the Stomach

http://sciencenordic.com/parkinsons-disease-may-start-stomach