I helgen gästar Jonas Bergqvist och vi pratar bl.a. om skillnader mellan mäns och kvinnors hälsa och också mer specifikt om vad män bör tänka på när det gäller kost och annat. Dessutom lite nyheter inom funktionsmedicin.
Archives for april 2019
Tarmfloran/ studie: Autism minskade med 50% !
Hur är tarmfloran involverad i Autism? VÄLDIGT mycket! Det finns egentligen i min erfarenhet (och kunskap/ vad studierna säger) alltid 3 områden som är involverade i Autism:
- problem på cellnivå, med näringsobalanser/ energiproduktion/ oxidativ stress
- toxisk belastning / problem med kroppens egen detox
- problem med tarm/tarmflora
Nu har man studerat nr 3 genom att göra avföringstransplantationer vid autism – och minskat symtom med hela 50% (!)
Läsvärt (saxat ut det viktigaste):
“Autism symptoms reduced nearly 50% two years after fecal transplant”
[autism spectrum disorder (ASD))]
“Currently, effective treatments for ASD include behavioral therapy, speech and social therapy, psychiatric medications, and dietary and nutritional approaches. However, no medical treatments have been approved to treat core symptoms of ASD such as social communication difficulties and repetitive behaviors.
One promising avenue of autism research involves the gut microbiome, which is the collection of microbes that lives in our intestines and helps us in many ways including digestion of our food, training our immune system and preventing overgrowth of harmful bacteria. Recent research suggests our gut microbiomes also affect brain communication and neurological health. Worldwide, interest is growing in the idea that changes in normal gut microbiota may be responsible for triggering a vast range of diseases.”
In a new study, “Long-term benefit of Microbiota Transfer Therapy in Autism Symptoms and Gut Microbiota,” published in Scientific Reports, Arizona State University researchers Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, Ph.D., James Adams, Ph.D, and lead author Dae-Wook Kang, Ph.D, demonstrate long-term beneficial effects for children diagnosed with ASD through a revolutionary technique known as Microbiota Transfer Therapy (MTT), a special type of fecal transplant […]. Remarkably, improvements in gut health and autism symptoms appear to persist long after treatment.
At two years post-treatment, most of the initial improvements in gut symptoms remained. In addition, parents reported a slow steady reduction of ASD symptoms during treatment and over the next two years. A professional evaluator found a 45% reduction in core ASD symptoms (language, social interaction and behavior) at two years post-treatment compared to before treatment began.
“We are finding a very strong connection between the microbes that live in our intestines and signals that travel to the brain,” said Krajmalnik-Brown, a professor at the Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute and ASU’s School for Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. “Two years later, the children are doing even better, which is amazing.”
“Many kids with autism have gastrointestinal problems, and some studies, including ours, have found that those children also have worse autism-related symptoms,” said Krajmalnik-Brown. “In many cases, when you are able to treat those gastrointestinal problems, their behavior improves.”
Roughly 30-50% of all people with autism have chronic gastrointestinal (GI) problems, primarily constipation and/or diarrhea that can last for many years. That chronic discomfort and pain can cause irritability, decreased attention and learning, and negatively impact behavior.
An earlier study with only vancomycin (an antibiotic) had found major temporary improvements in GI and autism symptoms, but the benefits were lost a few weeks after treatment stopped despite use of over-the-counter probiotics.
So, the question at hand was what’s going on in the gut, and how does it affect both physical and behavioral symptoms of autism, and how can we develop a long-lasting treatment?
Krajmalnik-Brown, Kang and Adams have shown that by transferring healthy microbiota to individuals lacking certain gut bacteria, it is possible to “donate” a more diverse set of bacteria into the patient and improve gut health.
[…] Only one dose of FMT is usually enough to cure C. Difficile infections, but his patients with autism were far harder to treat. He discovered that three months of daily FMT was required to treat his autism patients, but eventually resulted in significant improvements in both GI and autism symptoms.
Based on his experience with his patients, Borody led the design of the clinical treatment used at ASU for this study. The MTT approach involves 10 weeks of treatment, including pre-treatment with vancomycin, a bowel cleanse, a stomach acid suppressant, and fecal microbiota transfer daily for seven to eight weeks.
[…] Improvements in GI symptoms, ASD symptoms, and the microbiome all persisted for at least eight weeks after treatment ended, suggesting a long-term impact.” The present study now shows the benefits are extended beyond eight weeks to at least two years post-treatment.
The ASU team compared differences in the microbiome of children with autism compared to typically developing children. At the start of the study, children with autism were found to have lower diversity in their respective gut microbes and were depleted of certain strains of helpful bacteria, such as Bifidobacteria and Prevotella. “Kids with autism are lacking important beneficial bacteria, and have fewer options in the bacterial menu of important functions that bacteria provide to the gut than typically developing kids,” Krajmalnik-Brown said.
FMT treatment substantially increased microbial diversity and the presence of helpful bacteria in the gut, such as Bifidobacteria and Prevotella. After two years, diversity was even higher and the presence of beneficial microbes remained.
“We originally hypothesized that our therapy would be efficient to transform the dysbiotic gut microbiome toward a healthy one. In our original paper in 2017, we reported an increase in gut diversity together with beneficial bacteria after MTT, and after two years, we observed diversity was even higher and the presence of beneficial microbes remained,” Kang said. He added that this may be one of the reasons for success in improving the gut health, but further mechanistic studies are warranted to define specific roles of gut microbes in the context of autism.
The work done at ASU is not only about treating patients but also about learning from the treatment in order to develop better formulations and optimize dosing.
“Understanding which microbes and chemicals produced by the microbes are driving these behavioral changes is at the heart of our work,” Krajmalnik-Brown said. The team’s new publication reports that the study demonstrated that two years after treatment stopped the participants still had an average of a 58% reduction in GI symptoms compared to baseline. In addition, the parents of most participants reported “a slow but steady improvement in core ASD symptoms.”
“Every family completed the study, and every family returned two years later for a follow-up evaluation,” said Adams, citing the families’ dedication to the research. “The treatment was generally well-tolerated with minimal adverse effects.”
“This is a world-first discovery that when we treated the gut bacteria in these children during our clinical trial two years ago to reset their microbiome with FMT, positive results are still continuing to be improving two years from the original treatments. I would call it the highest improvement in a cohort that anyone has achieved for autism symptoms,” said Borody.
Professional evaluation revealed a 45% decrease in ASD symptoms compared to baseline. Researchers note that although there may be some placebo effect, much of that effect appears to be real. At the start of the study, 83% of participants were rated as “severe” autism. At the end of the study, only 17% were “severe,” 39% were “mild/moderate,” and 44% were below the cut-off for mild ASD.
[…]
All of the participants in the study exhibited chronic GI symptoms from infancy, including chronic constipation and/or chronic diarrhea. The treatment benefits extended beyond their physical symptoms, even causing some parents to note how much their children’s behavior had improved over time.
“It is very unusual to see steady gradual improvement after the conclusion of any treatment,” said Adams. “We only conducted the long-term follow-up study after several families told us that their child was continuing to improve significantly.” Krajmalnik-Brown stated that the data suggests that the MTT intervention transformed the gut environment into a healthier status, leading to long-term benefit on both GI and ASD symptoms.
Adams said many of the participants in the trial shared common traits, including birth by C-section, reduced breastfeeding, increased antibiotics, and low fiber intake by the mother and child, all of which lead to limited biodiversity in their gut bacteria. Due to the open label nature of the study and the small sample size used, more research is needed in order to verify the usefulness of MTT as a therapeutic.
[…]
The microbiota formulation used in the original study was developed at the University of Minnesota by Alexander Khoruts and Michael Sadowsky, who developed innovative methods for collecting microbiota from healthy, carefully-screened donors and purifying and freezing them. They licensed their technology to Finch Therapeutics, who provided financial support for the manufacturing of the therapeutic microbiota used for the study.”
Mer via taggen microbiome
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/asu-asr040819.php
Protein på kvällen?
Din kropp kan ta upp protein och öka muskelsyntes även när du sover. Den slutsatsen drar forskare efter en genomgång av det senaste decenniets studier på området.
Om protein kan tas upp ur tarmen och användas under natten eller inte har det rått delade meningar om. Här etablerar forskarna att man faktiskt kan få effekt av ett proteinintag innan läggdags.
Enligt forskare från Maastricht University i Nederländerna, som står bakom genomgången, är det alltså möjligt för kroppen att ta upp protein under natten. De drar även slutsatserna att protein innan läggdags stimulerar muskeltillväxten och styrkan, utan att man för den delen lägger på sig fett. Om man styrketränat på kvällen förstärks den här effekten.
Jag vill dock betona att man också behöver ha andra aspekter i åtanke. Det är enormt hälsosamt att ha minst 12 h tarmvila över natten, dvs att låta det gå minst 12 h mellan kvällsmat och frukost. Det är också viktigt att inte träna för sent på kvällen för att inte störa dygns- och hormonrytmen.
Resultaten i analysen gäller för unga tränande individer och äldre som kan ha svårt att få i sig tillräckligt med protein, enligt forskarna. Om man inte tränar väldigt mycket behöver man oftast inte tänka på sitt proteinintag, eftersom man då får i sig tillräckligt via en normal kost.
Och ingen studie hittills har lyckats svara på om effekten på muskelmassan beror på att man intar proteinet just på kvällen, eller om det handlar om att man ökar sitt totala proteinintag genom att lägga till ett extra tillfälle. Forskarna framhåller dock att sömnen är ett tillfälle för musklerna att återhämta sig och växa. Min kommentar: Sover vi på rätt tider har vi en fin utsöndring av bl.a. tillväxthormon nattetid.
I studien skriver man bl.a. att:
“we demonstrated for the first time that administration of 40 g (intrinsically labeled) protein during sleep (via a nasogastric tube) is normally digested and absorbed in older adults, resulting in an increase in overnight muscle protein synthesis rates. This indicates that the gut functions appropriately at night and suggests that nocturnal protein administration may be applied as a nutritional strategy to increase muscle protein synthesis rates during overnight sleep.”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2019.00017/full
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/protein-innan-laggdags-kan-ge-dig-storre-muskler
Statiner (kolesterolsänkande) ökar risken för ALS
Signifikant högre förekomst ALS och ALS-symtom hos personer som tar kolesterolsänkande medicin, statiner!
ALS, amyotrofisk lateral skleros, är neurodegenerativa sjukdomar där nervceller i centrala nervsystemet (hjärnan, hjärnstammen och ryggmärgen) dör. ALS angriper de motoriska nervcellerna, det vill säga de nervceller i hjärnan och ryggmärgen som styr musklernas rörelser. Detta leder i sin tur till muskelförtvining och förlamning.
Missa inte att lyssna på de ingående avsnitten på temat kolesterol och statiner, 139 och 140: https://4health.se/139-kolesterol-van-eller-fiende
“Apparent elevations in reporting of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-like conditions associated with statin use have been previously described from data obtained via US and European databases.”
“The aim of this study was to examine US FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) data to compare reporting odds ratios (RORs) of ALS and ALS-like conditions between statins and other drugs, for each statin agent.”
“We assessed for disproportional rates of reported ALS and ALS-related conditions for each statin agent separately by using the ROR formula. FAERS data were analyzed through September 2015.”
“RORs for ALS were elevated for all statins, with elevations possibly stronger for lipophilic statins. RORs ranged from 9.09 (6.57–12.6) and 16.2 (9.56–27.5) for rosuvastatin and pravastatin (hydrophilic) to 17.0 (14.1–20.4), 23.0 (18.3–29.1), and 107 (68.5–167) for atorvastatin, simvastatin, and lovastatin (lipophilic), respectively. For simvastatin, an ROR of 57.1 (39.5–82.7) was separately present for motor neuron disease.”
“These findings extend previous evidence showing that significantly elevated ALS reporting extends to individual statin agents, and add to concerns about potential elevated occurrence of ALS-like conditions in association with statin usage.”
Så håller du insekterna borta
Ofta börjar fästingarna komma fram på allvar nu i april, och från slutet av maj sätter myggorna igång. Och blir sommaren som förra året får vi nog räkna med mycket bromsar.
Sett massor av fästingar på katterna i dagarna!
Men vet du att ditt utseende och dina kläder kan hålla en del insekter borta? I tidigare inlägg har jag skrivit om allmänna tips mot fästingar (https://4health.se/fastingdags-och-fastingtips)
Kroppsmålningar har traditionellt använts av folkgrupper i Afrika, Australien och Papua nya Guinea. Nu visar en studie från bland annat Lunds universitet att bromsar ogillar randiga målningar. Skulle gissa att detta går att använda när det gäller kläder också. Det säljs bl.a. randiga hästtäcken för att skydda hästarna mot bromsar.
I andra studier har man visat att zebrors ränder håller insekter borta. Senare års forskning har visat att ränderna gör så att zebran inte drabbas av bitande blodsugande insekter i lika hög grad som enfärgade djur. Ränderna verkar göra så att bromsarna får svårt att landa, enligt forskare i England och USA. I ett försök cirklade bromsar ovanför zebror och hästar, men de landade 25 procent färre gånger på zebrorna.
När forskarna filmade kunde de se hur bromsarna oftare krockade med zebrorna istället för att göra en lyckad landning, eller så flög de bara förbi, medan bromsarna oftare kunde göra kontrollerade landningar på hästarna. När forskarna klädde på hästar randiga och enfärgade hästtäcken kunde de observera att bromsarna hade svårare att göra en kontrollerad landning på de randiga täckena. Det verkar alltså som att ränderna gör så att bromsarna missbedömer landningen.
Kroppsmålningarna har används som utsmyckning och kan vara ett sätt att visa identitet och grupptillhörighet.Forskarna i en studie använde 180 centimeter långa dockor, som liknade skyltdockor. Det visade sig att en enfärgad brun docka lockade till sig tio gånger så många bromsar som en brun docka med vita ränder. En enfärgad beige docka drog till sig dubbelt så många bromsar som en randig.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.181325
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0210831
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&artikel=7132719
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&artikel=7159290
Måttligt med alkohol ökar risken för stroke
Även måttlig alkoholkonsumtion ökar risken för stroke och förhöjt blodtryck, enligt ny forskning.
Jag har tagit upp denna fråga många gånger, inte minst i podden. Det ären myt att måttligt drickande är nyttigt! https://4health.se/101-ett-glas-vin-ar-det-nyttigt Läs också via https://4health.se/?s=alkohol
I den nya studien har forskarna undersökt effekterna av måttlig alkoholkonsumtion hos 160 000 personer.
“Moderate alcohol intake has been associated with reduced cardiovascular risk”..” Studies in east Asia can help determine whether these associations are causal, since two common genetic variants greatly affect alcohol drinking patterns. We used these two variants to assess the relationships between cardiovascular risk and genotype-predicted mean alcohol intake in men, contrasting the findings in men with those in women (few of whom drink).”
“The prospective China Kadoorie Biobank enrolled 512 715 adults between June 25, 2004, and July 15, 2008, from ten areas of China, recording alcohol use and other characteristics. It followed them for about 10 years (until Jan 1, 2017), monitoring cardiovascular disease (including ischaemic stroke, intracerebral haemorrhage, and myocardial infarction) by linkage with morbidity and mortality registries and electronic hospital records. 161 498 participants were genotyped for two variants that alter alcohol metabolism, ALDH2-rs671 and ADH1B-rs1229984. Adjusted Cox regression was used to obtain the relative risks associating disease incidence with self-reported drinking patterns (conventional epidemiology) or with genotype-predicted mean male alcohol intake (genetic epidemiology—ie, Mendelian randomisation), with stratification by study area to control for variation between areas in disease rates and in genotype-predicted intake.”
“33% (69 897/210 205) of men reported drinking alcohol in most weeks, mainly as spirits, compared with only 2% (6245/302 510) of women. Among men, conventional epidemiology showed that self-reported alcohol intake had U-shaped associations with the incidence of ischaemic stroke (n=14 930), intracerebral haemorrhage (n=3496), and acute myocardial infarction (n=2958); men who reported drinking about 100 g of alcohol per week (one to two drinks per day) had lower risks of all three diseases than non-drinkers or heavier drinkers. In contrast, although genotype-predicted mean male alcohol intake varied widely (from 4 to 256 g per week—ie, near zero to about four drinks per day), it did not have any U-shaped associations with risk. For stroke, genotype-predicted mean alcohol intake had a continuously positive log-linear association with risk, which was stronger for intracerebral haemorrhage (relative risk [RR] per 280 g per week 1·58, 95% CI 1·36–1·84, p<0·0001) than for ischaemic stroke (1·27, 1·13–1·43, p=0·0001). For myocardial infarction, however, genotype-predicted mean alcohol intake was not significantly associated with risk (RR per 280 g per week 0·96, 95% CI 0·78–1·18, p=0·69). Usual alcohol intake in current drinkers and genotype-predicted alcohol intake in all men had similarly strong positive associations with systolic blood pressure (each p<0·0001). Among women, few drank and the studied genotypes did not predict high mean alcohol intake and were not positively associated with blood pressure, stroke, or myocardial infarction.”
“Genetic epidemiology shows that the apparently protective effects of moderate alcohol intake against stroke are largely non-causal. Alcohol consumption uniformly increases blood pressure and stroke risk, and appears in this one study to have little net effect on the risk of myocardial infarction.”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31772-0/fulltext
Mycket skärmtid ger barn 40-åringars ögonproblem
Vi behandlar tolvåringar med ögonproblem som 40-åringar, säger optikern Tony Pansell. I dag är det så illa att vi ser småbarn med ”akademikerögon” — huvudvärk och ansträngda ögon.
När ett friskt och avslappnat öga tittar på lagom avstånd bryts ljuset till en fokuserad bild på ögonbotten. När vi ska se något på nära håll anstränger sig ögat och musklerna kring linsen spänns. Bildens skärpa ligger egentligen strax bakom ögonbotten.
När ögat försöker anpassa sig till att man tittar mycket på nära håll, som på en skärm, så växer det och blir längre för att få bildskärpan att ligga på ögonbotten. När ögat sedan slappnar av och tittar längre bort hamnar skärpan framför ögonbotten och man ser oskarpt på långt håll. Huvudvärk, rodnande ögon och ögonvärk är alla tecken på att ögonen påverkats av för mycket tid framför skärmen.
Det har länge varit känt att akademiker som hängt över sina böcker i timtal ansträngt ögonen så att de fått huvudvärk. Tony Pansell är optiker, docent och universitetslektor och tar bland annat emot barn som skickats på remiss från skolsköterskor. De har huvudvärk och svårt att hänga med i skolan och nu är det inte böcker utan det ständiga stirrandet på skärmar som är boven. De yngsta barnen är så unga som sex, sju år.
Ett problem man kan få av att stirra länge på en skärm på nära håll är så kallad falsk närsynthet. Ögat spänner sig och krampar för att det inte kan slappna av och ögats fokus ligger kvar på nära avstånd. Om man ser suddigt på långt håll och har huvudvärk misstänker man falsk närsynthet och ögonkramp. Synhuvudvärk kommer under dagen och släpper om man tittar bort.
Ännu vanligare är motsatsen, att ögat förslappas. Det här känner många medelålders igen – plötsligt får man hålla allt med sträckta armar och använda läsglasögon för att se tydligt. Men Tony Pansells patienter har långt kvar till medelåldern. Han behandlar barn som om de vore 20—30 år äldre.
Det handlar dock oftast om ett tillfälligt rubbat system och att det är lätt att behandla. Men båda tillstånden är besvärliga för barnen. Det påverkar livskvaliteten och synfunktionen och gör det svårare att hänga med i skolan. Huvudvärken kan göra att man blir mindre koncentrerad.
Problemet är att många går runt och tror att det är normalt för att många andra i klassen också har ont i huvudet. Många barn inser att besvären hänger ihop med skärmarna, men är livrädda för att bli av med skärmtiden.
Behandlingen är enkel – barnen får läsglasögon med styrka +1 och någon månad senare är de flesta bra igen. Ofta diskuterar man också med barnen och deras föräldrar om hur mycket man ska sitta framför skärmen.
Men för mycket stirrande på kort avstånd kan också få långsiktiga konsekvenser. När man tittar på nära håll hamnar bilden naturligt lite bakom ögat. Det som händer om man tittat väldigt mycket på nära håll är att ögat börjar växa mot bilden för att kompensera, då är ögat inte längre runt utan avlångt. Det är det som är närsynthet, ögat blir för långt när det anpassas till närseende, och man ser suddigt på långt håll.
När ögat fortsätter att växa blir ögonväggen tunnare och det ökar risken för näthinneavlossning och grön starr när man blir äldre, sjukdomar som i sin tur kan leda till blindhet. I några asiatiska länder är 80 procent av gymnasieeleverna närsynta och 20 procent av dem gravt närsynta. I Asien är problemet så stort att Världshälsoorganisationen (WHO) har klassat det som en epidemi.
I Sverige och Europa kan man inte tala om en epidemi, men närsyntheten breder ut sig även här. Man vet ännu inte exakt vad det beror på, men helt klart är att tiden framför skärmen får effekter på synen.
Det bästa vore att ha en app som gjorde att skärmen stängdes ned var femte minut så att man blir tvungen att ta paus. Det är också bra att vistas utomhus. Solljus med UV-strålning frigör ämnen i näthinnan som förhindrar att ögat växer på längden. Därför är det också viktigt att barn går ut på rasten i skolan och inte sitter inne med mobilen. Dessutom ska man inte hålla skärmen för nära ögonen, vetenskapen visar att det ökar risken för långtidseffekter.
För vuxna som själva får ta ansvar för sitt skärmstirrande kan man använda 20–20–20-regeln. Var tjugonde minut tar man tjugo sekunders paus och tittar tjugo meter bort. Ta paus, titta ut i oändligheten. Och har du problem, sök hjälp hos en optiker.
https://www.dn.se/nyheter/vetenskap/mycket-skarmtid-ger-barn-40-aringars-ogonproblem/
Naturbeteskött på Coop
Från och med denna vecka kommer Coop att sälja ett nytt sortiment med svenskt naturbeteskött under eget varumärke. Trevligt!
Köttet kommet att vara certifierat och följa reglerna enligt märkningen Svenskt Sigill Naturbeteskött.
Bra för hälsan och bra för miljön! Naturbetesmarker är områden som är hem för många insekter, växter och fåglar. Det är mark som är magra och därför inte passar för odling. För att markerna inte ska växa igen är det viktigt att de betas av djur. Nötkreaturens bete i naturbetesmarken är en förutsättning för ett rikt växt- och djurliv. Konsumentföreningen Stockholm (KfS) har nyligen startat ett treårigt projekt tillsammans med WWF för att öka arealen naturbetesmark i Roslagen.
https://www.ja.se/artikel/59649/coop-lanserar-svenskt-naturbetesktt.html
Tarmflorans direkta koppling till din hjärna
Det finns en tydlig koppling mellan tarmen och din hjärna. Allt mer forskning kommer kring kopplingen som tarmfloran har till demens, autism, depression mm.
Bra sammanfattande artikel i The New York times om kopplingen mellan din tarmflora och hjärna. Länk nedan, här saxat ur artikeln:
“Germs in Your Gut Are Talking to Your Brain.”
“The body’s microbial community may influence the brain and behavior, perhaps even playing a role in dementia, autism and other disorders.
In 2014 John Cryan, a professor at University College Cork in Ireland, attended a meeting in California about Alzheimer’s disease. He wasn’t an expert on dementia. Instead, he studied the microbiome, the trillions of microbes inside the healthy human body.
Dr. Cryan and other scientists were beginning to find hints that these microbes could influence the brain and behavior. Perhaps, he told the scientific gathering, the microbiome has a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
The idea was not well received. “I’ve never given a talk to so many people who didn’t believe what I was saying,” Dr. Cryan recalled.
A lot has changed since then: Research continues to turn up remarkable links between the microbiome and the brain. Scientists are finding evidence that microbiome may play a role not just in Alzheimer’s disease, but Parkinson’s disease, depression, schizophrenia, autism and other conditions.
For some neuroscientists, new studies have changed the way they think about the brain.”
“One of the skeptics at that Alzheimer’s meeting was Sangram Sisodia, a neurobiologist at the University of Chicago. […] he decided to put the idea to a simple test.”
“He and his colleagues gave antibiotics to mice prone to develop a version of Alzheimer’s disease, in order to kill off much of the gut bacteria in the mice. Later, when the scientists inspected the animals’ brains, they found far fewer of the protein clumps linked to dementia.
Just a little disruption of the microbiome was enough to produce this effect. Young mice given antibiotics for a week had fewer clumps in their brains when they grew old, too.”
“For someone with a background in molecular biology and neuroscience, this is like going into outer space.”
Following a string of similar experiments, he now suspects that just a few species in the gut — perhaps even one — influence the course of Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps by releasing chemical that alters how immune cells work in the brain.
He hasn’t found those microbes, let alone that chemical. But “there’s something’s in there,” he said. “And we have to figure out what it is.”
“Scientists have long known that microbes live inside us. In 1683, the Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek put plaque from his teeth under a microscope and discovered tiny creatures swimming about.
But the microbiome has stubbornly resisted scientific discovery. For generations, microbiologists only studied the species that they could grow in the lab. Most of our interior occupants can’t survive in petri dishes.
In the early 2000s, however, the science of the microbiome took a sudden leap forward when researchers figured out how to sequence DNA from these microbes.”
“The brain is shielded from microbial invasion by the so-called blood-brain barrier. Normally, only small molecules pass through.
“As recently as 2011, it was considered crazy to look for associations between the microbiome and behavior,” said Rob Knight, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Diego.
“Investigators took stool from mice with a genetic mutation that caused them to eat a lot and put on weight. They transferred the stool to mice that had been raised germ-free — that is, entirely without gut microbiomes — since birth.
After receiving this so-called fecal transplant, the germ-free mice got hungry, too, and put on weight.
Altering appetite isn’t the only thing that the microbiome can do to the brain, it turns out. Dr. Cryan and his colleagues, for example, have found that mice without microbiomes become loners, preferring to stay away from fellow rodents.
The scientists eventually discovered changes in the brains of these antisocial mice. One region, called the amygdala, is important for processing social emotions. In germ-free mice, the neurons in the amygdala make unusual sets of proteins, changing the connections they make with other cells.”
“Children with autism have unusual patterns of microbial species in their stool. Differences in the gut bacteria of people with a host of other brain-based conditions also have been reported.
But none of these associations proves cause and effect. Finding an unusual microbiome in people with Alzheimer’s doesn’t mean that the bacteria drive the disease. It could be the reverse: People with Alzheimer’s disease often change their eating habits, for example, and that switch might favor different species of gut microbes.
Fecal transplants can help pin down these links. In his research on Alzheimer’s, Dr. Sisodia and his colleagues transferred stool from ordinary mice into the mice they had treated with antibiotics. Once their microbiomes were restored, the antibiotic-treated mice started developing protein clumps again.
“We’re extremely confident that it’s the bacteria that’s driving this,” he said. Other researchers have taken these experiments a step further by using human fecal transplants.”
“If you hold a mouse by its tail, it normally wriggles in an effort to escape. If you give it a fecal transplant from humans with major depression, you get a completely different result: The mice give up sooner, simply hanging motionless.
“To study autism, Dr. Mauro Costa-Mattioli and his colleagues at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston investigated different kinds of mice, each of which display some symptoms of autism. A mutation in a gene called SHANK3 can cause mice to groom themselves repetitively and avoid contact with other mice, for example.
In another mouse strain, Dr. Costa-Mattioli found that feeding mothers a high-fat diet makes it more likely their pups will behave this way.
When the researchers investigated the microbiomes of these mice, they found the animals lacked a common species called Lactobacillus reuteri. When they added a strain of that bacteria to the diet, the animals became social again.
Dr. Costa-Mattioli found evidence that L. reuteri releases compounds that send a signal to nerve endings in the intestines. The vagus nerve sends these signals from the gut to the brain, where they alter production of a hormone called oxytocin that promotes social bonds.
Other microbial species also send signals along the vagus nerve, it turns out. Still others communicate with the brain via the bloodstream.
It’s likely that this influence begins before birth, as a pregnant mother’s microbiome releases molecules that make their way into the fetal brain.
Mothers seed their babies with microbes during childbirth and breast feeding. During the first few years of life, both the brain and the microbiome rapidly mature.”
“the amygdala, the emotion-processing region of the brain”
“Dr. Knickmeyer and her colleagues measured the strength of the connections between the amygdala and other regions of the brain. Babies with a lower diversity of species in their guts have stronger connections, the researchers found.
Does that mean a low-diversity microbiome makes babies more fearful of others? It’s not possible to say yet “
“In the early 1900s, neurologists found that putting people with epilepsy on a diet low in carbohydrates and high in protein and fat sometimes reduced their seizures.
Epileptic mice experience the same protection from a so-called ketogenic diet. But no one could say why. Elaine Hsiao, a microbiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, suspected that the microbiome was the reason.
To test the microbiome’s importance, Dr. Hsiao and her colleagues raised mice free of microbes. When they put the germ-free epileptic mice on a ketogenic diet, they found that the animals got no protection from seizures.
But if they gave the germ-free animals stool from mice on a ketogenic diet, seizures were reduced.
Dr. Hsiao found that two types of gut bacteria in particular thrive in mice on a ketogenic diet. They may provide their hosts with building blocks for neurotransmitters that put a brake on electrical activity in the brain.
It’s conceivable that people with epilepsy wouldn’t need to go on a ketogenic diet to get its benefits — one day, they may just take a pill containing the bacteria that do well on the diet.
Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist at Caltech, and his colleagues have identified a single strain of bacteria that triggers symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in mice. He has started a company that is testing a compound that may block signals that the microbe sends to the vagus nerve.
“Dr. Costa-Mattioli hopes that L. reuteri some day will help some people with autism, but he warns parents against treating their children with store-bought probiotics. Some strains of L. reuteri alter the behavior of mice, he’s found, and others don’t.
Dr. Costa-Mattioli and his colleagues are still searching for the most effective strain and figuring out the right dose to try on people.
Mer via taggen https://4health.se/tag/microbiome
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/health/microbiome-brain-behavior-dementia.html
216b: Dr Marcus Gitterle – Carnosin, an anti-aging substance in your body
Carnosine! An anti aging substance in your body, in food and in supplements. How are your mitochondria and your gut affected by carnosine? How does carnosine reduce the cellular debris we discussed in episodes 209 and 209b? And how does carnosine reverse the damage done by sugar?
This is the English version of the interview with anti-aging expert Dr Marcus Gitterle! If you prefer the Swedish version, go to episode 216.
20 minutes to listen to during a walk, in your car or on the bus!
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