Special kudos to Megan Brooks for providing some background information on the gut bacteria Desulfovibrio and its gut/brain implications.

Friends: 

Parkinson’s Disease is all too common, on the increase, and potentially becomes a tragic neurological disease, especially as we age. What to do and how to be proactive is what the next two installments of Dr. Koz are all about.

 

ABOUT PARKINSON:

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common neurologic disorders, affecting approximately 1% of individuals older than 60 years and causing progressive disability that can be slowed, but not halted, by treatment at this time. 

A small study suggests that a common gut bacteria may play a role in the development of (PD) by causing aggregation of the alpha-synuclein protein, a key feature in the pathology of PD.

Environmental factors and genetics are also suspected to play a role in PD etiology, although the exact cause remains unknown.

 

ABOUT OUR MICROBIOME:

“Our findings indicate that specific strains of Desulfovibrio bacteria are likely to cause Parkinson’s disease,” study investigator Per Erik Saris, Ph.D., from the University of Helsinki, Finland, says in a news release.

The study was online on May 1 in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.

It builds on earlier works by researchers that showed that Desulfovibrio bacteria were more prevalent and abundant in quantity in patients with PD, especially patients with more severe disease, than in healthy individuals.

Desulfovibrio is a genus of gram-negative bacteria commonly found in aquatic environments where levels of organic material are elevated and waterlogged soils.

Saris and colleagues looked for Desulfovibrio species in fecal samples from 10 patients with PD and their healthy spouses.

Isolated Desulfovibrio strains were fed to a strain of Caenorhabditis elegans roundworms that expressed human alpha-syn fused with a yellow fluorescent protein.

They found that worms fed Desulfovibrio bacteria from patients with PD harbored significantly more and larger alpha-syn aggregates than worms fed Desulfovibrio bacteria from healthy individuals or worms fed E.Coli

Noteworthy observations, worms fed Desulfovibrio strains from patients with PD died in significantly higher quantities than worms fed E coli bacteria.

“Taking into account that aggregation of alpha-syn is a  major hallmark of PD, the ability of Desulfovibrio bacteria to induce alpha-syn aggregation in large numbers and sizes, as demonstrated in the present study, provides further evidence for the pathogenic role of Desulfovibrio bacteria in PD, as previously suggested,” they add.

 

The findings highlight the potential for screening and targeted removal of harmful Desulfovibrio bacteria, Saris suggests in the news release.

Reached for comment, James Beck, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at the Parkinson’s Foundation, cautioned that “this research is in a very early stage, uses a nonvertebrate animal model, and the number of participants is small”.

 

“Understanding the role of the gut microbiome in influencing PD is in its infancy. These are important steps to determining what ― if any ― link may be between gut bacteria and PD,” Beck told Medscape Medical News.

 

“Right now, there are no implications for the screening/treatment of carriers,” Beck said.

 

“It seems that many people, whether with PD or not, harbor Desulfovibrio bacteria in their gut. More research is needed to understand the difference between the Desulfovibrio bacteria of people with PD vs. those who do not have PD,” Beck added.

However, a very recent news break is regarding findings and new assays as marker precursors for PD by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research Foundation.

“Parkinson’s cure ‘inevitable’ after biomarker breakthrough”

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) has announced what it says is the ‘most significant breakthrough yet’ in the search for a Parkinson’s biomarker: a biological test for Parkinson’s disease. The test demonstrates high diagnostic accuracy, differentiates molecular subtypes, and detects disease in individuals before cardinal movement symptoms arise.

A paper on the test was published in The Lancet Neurology journal by leaders of the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), the Parkinson’s biomarker study sponsored by the MJFF.

Now things are getting very interesting as they begin to connect!

 

Their press release:

 

“The new Parkinson’s test, known as the alpha-synuclein seed amplification assay (αSyn-SAA), heralds the ability for research to define Parkinson’s disease biologically, offering a critical tool for clinical trial design and assessment of treatment effects and for early detection of disease pathology.

 

The PPMI authors said the test detects alpha-synuclein pathology, one of the two biological hallmarks of Parkinson’s disease (alongside dopaminergic transport dysfunction, which can be visualized using DaTScan). As a result, for the first time since James Parkinson first characterized the disorder in 1817, researchers and clinicians can use biology (as opposed to clinical assessments and patient-reported outcomes) to identify, define and monitor Parkinson’s objectively, based on cellular pathology in the body”.

A new era in Parkinson’s disease research

“Validation of this biomarker launches a new, biological era in Parkinson’s research,” said Kenneth Marek, PPMI principal investigator, president, and senior scientist at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Disorders. 

“Using αSyn-SAA, we are already unlocking a new understanding of Parkinson’s, which will transform every aspect of drug development and clinical care. We will rapidly be able to test new therapies in the right populations, target the right therapy to the right patient at the right time, and launch studies of agents that can potentially prevent Parkinson’s disease altogether. PPMI was built to do this, and we are especially grateful to the thousands of study participants whose contributions have enabled this watershed moment.” 

 

So let’s review the sequence in a “nutshell” as we conclude Part One–a specific gut bacteria creates a special protein that is toxic to the brain in specific places of the brain (dopamine sites) that creates neurological damage that is being recognized and can now be measured as a major culprit for Parkinson’s’ ( and perhaps other Neurological Diseases (ND).

 

Part Two will be some fascinating interventions with specific agents from our nutraceutical industry that have promising impacts on disease origin, progression, and health restoration.

 

 ( Author comment) It’s significant when “aggregation” is mentioned; check with earlier Dr. Koz articles about “quorum sensing” and virulence. Again, having a lurking “bug “that goes “bad” is far less of an issue than its number. Once reaching a large number, an ” aggregation” becomes a critical mass population and thus makes communication, in what appears to be  “decisions” in how it grows and the nuances of activity in its metabolism.)