Hariom Yadav, PhD, can鈥檛 get a particular cocktail off his mind 鈥� especially because our aging population potentially could benefit from the benefits for brain health that this punch may pack.
The drink is a unique blend of probiotics that can positively impact the microbiome, the unseen community of microorganisms that live by the trillions in a person鈥檚 gut.
In a healthy individual, those microorganisms live harmoniously in their vast internal community. But the gut also can become populated with certain bacteria and viruses that can cause disruptions throughout the body, ultimately triggering a progression over time that contributes to dementia and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease 鈥� a major problem, especially given that the number of new patients diagnosed with dementia is expected to double to roughly a million a year, by 2060.
Dr. Yadav, director of the 黑料网吃瓜爆料Health Center for Microbiome Research and associate professor of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair in the 黑料网吃瓜爆料Health Morsani College of Medicine, is senior author of two newly published studies involving two teams of 黑料网吃瓜爆料Health researchers. His research focuses on how gut health influences brain health and cognitive decline. (Read about the other new study here.)
His team鈥檚 findings about the probiotic cocktail, published in Nature Scientific Reports in January, suggests that the concoction could become a novel therapy to help lower the risk of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and other forms of dementia. While the research has many further steps of testing to see whether the cocktail lives up to its potential, it proposes a different approach to preventing dementia. Existing medications for Alzheimer鈥檚 disease target biological mechanisms in the brain, not the gut.
In the study, , Dr. Yadav and his team described developing the cocktail, which contains multiple kinds of probiotics, or strains of 鈥済ood鈥� bacteria known to help keep the human gut working as it should. Study mice received the cocktail in their drinking water for 16 weeks and then performed a 鈥渨ater maze鈥� test, in which they are given visual cues to help them swim to a hidden underwater platform. Cocktail-drinking mice were consistently able to find the platform faster.
Dr. Yadav鈥檚 team found that the cocktail reduced the levels of proteins that can cause the build-up of sticky plaques in the brain. It also appeared to lower levels of brain inflammation and preserve tight junctions in the blood-brain barrier 鈥� preventing leakage of harmful microorganisms into the brain. The results suggest that this probiotics mixture could decrease the progression of cognitive decline and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.
鈥淲e actually developed this cocktail a few years back,鈥� Dr. Yadav said. 鈥淣ormally, people look at some single-strand probiotics. But we discovered that when they are put together as a consortia, they actually have more power for manipulating microbiomes, switching them from the bad side to the good side.鈥�
Dr. Yadav and his team stressed in their study that emerging evidence demonstrates early interventions in Alzheimer鈥檚 disease can delay or even prevent the progression of symptoms.
鈥淭herefore,鈥� they concluded, 鈥渢here is a need to develop novel, disease-modifying treatments that can be implemented early in life, ensuring long-term safety.鈥�
The team systematically explored what is happening both in the gut and the brain, establishing a link between the two in triggering cognitive problems. What they observed was that a condition called 鈥渓eaky gut,鈥� which allows harmful microorganisms escape from the intestines into the bloodstream, thus contributed systemic inflammation. From there, inflammation traveled to the brain, where they are supposed to be blocked by the blood-brain barrier, but in this case they penetrate to brain and cause neuroinflammation and neuronal damage causing dementia.
鈥淭hink about this: not everything we eat enters our blood 鈥�