Parkinson’s disease is a nervous system disorder common in older people that involves a loss of dopamine neurons in the brain, leading to problems with movement. The part of the nervous system that influences the gastrointestinal system is targeted early on in Parkinson’s disease, and patients will often experience gastrointestinal symptoms years before motor symptoms occur. The nature of this is not fully clear, but research has suggested that gut microbes in the human intestinal tract (making up the gut microbiome) interact with the nervous system and have even been associated with different diseases, but an association with Parkinson’s disease has not yet been looked into. Given the relationship between Parkinson’s disease and the gastrointestinal system which houses these microorganisms, scientists explored the relationship between Parkinson’s disease and intestinal microbiota for the first time. Specifically, they wanted to see how the microbiomes in people with the disease compared to those in people without it.
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In this study, researchers analyzed the microbiomes of 72 subjects with Parkinson’s disease and 72 control subjects without. Interestingly, they found that those with Parkinson’s disease had 77.6% less of the bacteria Prevotellaceae than subjects without the disease. They also found that the amount of another bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, in Parkinson’s patients correlated with their degree of impairment in walking and balance.
While the results of this study bring attention to a new area of research, the reason for the differences in microbiota between patients and subjects without the disease is yet to be known. For example, whether it is the lack of Prevotellaceae that contributes to Parkinson’s disease or the disease itself that reduces the amount of this bacteria is left to be discovered in future studies.
A deeper understanding of the mechanisms that link Parkinson’s disease to differences in gut microbiota could potentially lead to a way of diagnosing the disease or even possibly treating or preventing its occurrence.
Feature Image Source: Germatopia by Filter Forge
