Gut Bacteria Key to Slowing & Reversing Parkinson’s?

Health

I once knew a man with Parkinson’s disease and I’ll never forget what he told me. He said that the worse thing was not being able to write his name or feed himself because his hands shook so bad. He couldn’t keep food on a fork or spoon and needed help just to eat. His shaking hands made his signature totally unreadable which meant he could no longer sign a check or any legal document. And then there was the way that others would stare at him and treat him as if he had some highly contagious fatal disease.

It is estimated that by the end of this year, at least 1 million Americans will be living with Parkinson’s disease, and that about 60,000 new cases will be diagnosed this year alone. Did you know that men are about 1 ½ times more likely to develop Parkinson’s than women?

According to the Parkinson’s Foundation:

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects predominately dopamine-producing (“dopaminergic”) neurons in a specific area of the brain called substantia nigra.

Symptoms generally develop slowly over years. The progression of symptoms is often a bit different from one person to another due to the diversity of the disease. People with PD may experience:

 

  • Tremor, mainly at rest and described as pill rolling tremor in hands. Other forms of tremor are possible
  • Bradykinesia
  • Limb rigidity
  • Gait and balance problems

 

The cause remains largely unknown. Although there is no cure, treatment options vary and include medications and surgery. While Parkinson’s itself is not fatal, disease complications can be serious. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rated complications from PD as the 14th cause of death in the United States.

Every year researchers get another step close to discovering the cause of Parkinson’s or finding ways to slow its progression and one group of researchers may have just made a giant leap forward, as reported by Parkinson’s News Today:

A common gut bacteria called Bacilus subtilis (B. subtilis), which aids in digestion, shows the potential to counteract the misfolded alpha-synuclein protein central to Parkinson’s disease, according to a new study.

  1. subtilis,a so-called “good” bacteria, slowed the buildup of this protein in the nerve cells of worms engineered to produce human alpha-synuclein, and was found to clear some of its harmful clumps.

The study, “Probiotic Bacilus subtilis Protects against α-Synuclein Aggregation in C. elegans, ”was published in Cell Reports.

In order to function correctly in the body, proteins are folded into specific shapes, like making biological origami cranes. In Parkinson’s, the alpha-synuclein in nerve cells misfolds and then clumps together into structures that are toxic to these neurons.

Several recent studies have drawn links between what happens in the gut and in the brain. That led researchers at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Dundee, both in the U.K., to ask whether changes in the gut could affect alpha-synuclein aggregation, or buildup.

It seems like our guts play a far more important role other than processing our food and expanding our girth. While more studies are needed, the role of certain probiotics may play a larger part in our overall health than we originally thought, providing a brighter light at the end of the dark Parkinson’s tunnel.

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