The PREDICT-PD Blog: Short chain fatty acids and gut microbiota differ between patients with Parkinson's disease and age-matched controls

Short chain fatty acids and gut microbiota differ between patients with Parkinson's disease and age-matched controls

Gut microbiota in Parkinson's disease

I am onto this possible gut microbiome and Parkinson's link. As a young teen I suffered with severe back acne. The standard treatment back then was to be given high powered broad spectrum antibiotics. I have had gut dysbiosis ever since.. And now I have Parkinson's.. Go figure.

A week ago today I did a fecal Microbiome transplant FMT. Today I've had 2 normal bm's. I think it takes a few days for Microbiome to colonize. I am a believer in Braack hypothesis as the gut is the source of a synuclean. A syn travels the vagus to the central nervous system. Correcting gut bacteria just may be the key to stopping neurological degeneration.

Curious in how you feel post transplant. Keep us up to date.

Hi Blackfeather,

In homeopathy school we were taught that suppressing a skin problem can definitey lead to deep chronic pathos.

Dr. Perlmutter theorizes that many PWP present with shingles - so the question becomes how to treat the detoxification process of the bodys' attempt to dispel toxin... somehow the word "gently" comes to mind....

Kind regards,
MD

A paper [1] by Sampson et al, which is behind a paywall, has some interesting findings.

"Synucleinopathies are characterized by aggregation of the protein α-synuclein (αSyn), often resulting in motor dysfunction as exemplified by Parkinson’s disease (PD). Using mice that overexpress αSyn, we report herein that gut microbiota are required for motor deficits, microglia activation, and αSyn pathology. Antibiotic treatment ameliorates, while microbial re-colonization promotes, pathophysiology in adult animals ... Indeed, oral administration of specific microbial metabolites to germ-free mice promotes neuroinflammation and motor symptoms. Remarkably, colonization of αSyn-overexpressing mice with microbiota from PD-affected patients enhances physical impairments compared to microbiota transplants from healthy human donors."

Power to the poo!

Blackfeather do you have an update of your faecal transplant experiences?

Reference

[1] "Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease
Timothy R. Sampson et al.
Cell, Dec 2016
http://www.cell.com/action/showImage...2816%2931590-2

John

I tried a series of 3 fecal flora transplant over 3 successive day's. It appeared there was improved bowel function for about a week, but didn't last. I believe one needs to do more than 3, maybe 10 to be successful. Would also help to sterilize the gut and then do an implant. That is how Dr Thomas Borody does it. He uses antibiotics to cleanse the gut. Mine was a do it yourself attempt. For some people that can work. Check out the Bio Collective. They are doing a lot of work with analysing the gut microbiome. Also you may want to look at a YouTube video of a Ted talk by Martha Carlin about poo.

johnt said:
"A paper [1] by Sampson et al, which is behind a paywall, has some interesting findings.
...
[1] Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease, Timothy R. Sampson et al. Cell, Dec 2016."

This may turn out to be a significant paper. It was published late last year, but already has more than 30 citations. Two of these (so far) have caught my attention.

The first one is a brief article giving an overview of the paper. The following sentence stood out: "The authors think that molecules made by gut microbes could activate certain immune cells and boost inflammation in general, which then enhances the clumping of α-synuclein in the brain."

Microbiology: Gut bacteria linked to Parkinson'''s : Nature : Nature Research

The second one is actually a couple of comments on a website called PubPeer. The comments (from users "Unregistered Submission" and "Peer 2") are particularly critical of the quality of the statistical analysis that has been done. They sound to me like they know what they are talking about, but for some reason they have chosen to remain anonymous, and have chosen the PubPeer website rather than PubMed Commons.

PubPeer - Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson?s Disease

Thanks johnt and jeffreyn.

There is a description of the Human Microbiome Project here Human Microbiome Project DACC - Home.

My take on it is that we need to learn a lot more about which of the vast number of different kinds of commensual human gut bacteria are linked to health problems before we can use that knowledge to intervene clinically.