From: mha23x@gmail.com   
      
   Gut bacteria may play a role in Alzheimer's disease   
   February 10, 2017   
    gut   
   Credit: CC0 Public Domain   
   New research from Lund University in Sweden has shown that intestinal bacteria   
   can accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease. According to the   
   researchers behind the study, the results open up the door to new   
   opportunities for preventing and    
   treating the disease.   
      
   Because our gut bacteria have a major impact on how we feel through the   
   interaction between the immune system, the intestinal mucosa and our diet, the   
   composition of the gut microbiota is of great interest to research on diseases   
   such as Alzheimer's.    
   Exactly how our gut microbiota composition is composed depends on which   
   bacteria we receive at birth, our genes and our diet.   
   By studying both healthy and diseased mice, the researchers found that mice   
   suffering from Alzheimer's have a different composition of gut bacteria   
   compared to mice that are healthy. The researchers also studied Alzheimer's   
   disease in mice that    
   completely lacked bacteria to further test the relationship between intestinal   
   bacteria and the disease. Mice without bacteria had a significantly smaller   
   amount of beta-amyloid plaque in the brain. Beta-amyloid plaques are the lumps   
   that form at the    
   nerve fibres in cases of Alzheimer's disease.   
   To clarify the link between intestinal flora and the occurrence of the   
   disease, the researchers transferred intestinal bacteria from diseased mice to   
   germ-free mice, and discovered that the mice developed more beta-amyloid   
   plaques in the brain compared    
   to if they had received bacteria from healthy mice.   
   "Our study is unique as it shows a direct causal link between gut bacteria and   
   Alzheimer's disease. It was striking that the mice which completely lacked   
   bacteria developed much less plaque in the brain", says researcher Frida Fåk   
   Hållenius, at the    
   Food for Health Science Centre.   
   "The results mean that we can now begin researching ways to prevent the   
   disease and delay the onset. We consider this to be a major breakthrough as we   
   used to only be able to give symptom-relieving antiretroviral drugs."   
   The research is a result of an international collaboration between Associate   
   Professor Frida Fåk Hållenius and doctoral student Nittaya Marungruang, both   
   at the Food for Health Science Centre in Lund, and a research group at the   
   Ecole Polytechnique    
   Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. The collaboration has now expanded to   
   include researchers from Germany and Belgium in connection with receiving a   
   SEK 50 million EU grant.   
   The researchers will continue to study the role of bacteria in the development   
   of Alzheimer's disease, and test entirely new types of preventive and   
   therapeutic strategies based on the modulation of the gut microbiota through   
   diet and new types of    
   probiotics.   
    Explore further: Researchers target gut bacteria to reduce weight gain   
   More information: T. Harach et al. Reduction of Abeta amyloid pathology in   
   APPPS1 transgenic mice in the absence of gut microbiota, Scientific Reports   
   (2017). DOI: 10.1038/srep41802    
   Journal reference: Scientific Reports     
   Provided by: Lund University    
      
      
   Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-02-gut-bacteri   
   -role-alzheimer-disease.html#jCp   
      
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