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I don’t think that most couples have the same diet. They may eat the same dinner, but have different food for breakfast and lunch. My parents are in their mid-70s and have different breakfast and lunch choices. If they go out to eat, they will pick different food too.
Ok then let's look at the epidemiology of H. pylori.
"H. pylori infection is usually acquired during childhood; infected people usually remain asymptomatic, but about 30% of individuals may develop mild to severe upper gastrointestinal diseases such as gastritis, peptic ulcer, gastric cancer or MALT lymphoma. The transmission route is not clear yet; the person-to-person transmission, especially within the same family appears to be prevalent, but also environmental contamination is possible. The eradication without a specific therapeutic regimen is very unlikely and the reinfection rate after an effective eradication therapy is quite rare. The reinfection rate will increase if there are family members affected. (www.actabiomedica.it)"
I mentioned diet as a possible viable way to change the microenvironment if it is a shift in the microbiome because of diet.
There is horizontal transmission of family members with gastrointestinal flora where diet is apparently not involved.
"Cohabiting family members share microbiota with one another and with their dogs
Human-associated microbial communities vary across individuals: possible contributing factors include (genetic) relatedness, diet, and age. However, our surroundings, including individuals with whom we interact, also likely shape our microbial communities. To quantify this microbial exchange, we surveyed fecal, oral, and skin microbiota from 60 families (spousal units with children, dogs, both, or neither). Household members, particularly couples, shared more of their microbiota than individuals from different households, with stronger effects of co-habitation on skin than oral or fecal microbiota. Dog ownership significantly increased the shared skin microbiota in cohabiting adults, and dog-owning adults shared more ‘skin’ microbiota with their own dogs than with other dogs. Although the degree to which these shared microbes have a true niche on the human body, vs transient detection after direct contact, is unknown, these results suggest that direct and frequent contact with our cohabitants may significantly shape the composition of our microbial communities."
I think there's probably a connection.... however Alzheimer's is so complex there's a likely connection with a lot of factors: apoe4 genes, likely other genes not yet well understood, gender plays a part (women have higher rates), smoking, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure, depression, isolation, even lack of education, and more. Many of these things are interrelated and co-arise but not all. So, sure, throw gut biome into the mix. I think at this point there's no reason to think it's just one thing that can be fixed or modified, but many things where you can make healthy choices and increase your odds (but not bring them to zero) of relatively good brain health as you age.
I read about some interesting early studies on mRNA vaccines and Alzheimer's. Not sure if it will go anywhere, but wouldn't that be a miracle. (Thank you, scientists.)
Happy to hear that! It's superior to fusions! I met a gal that had the flexible disks at multi levels, she was walking well, even sitting down without thought, unlike me who uses a cane, I also can't just plop down on a chair. She went to Germany back in 2004. I met her in 2006.
I hope this isn't an ignorant question, but can a fusion be replaced with flexible disks? If so, maybe you could have it redone?
Seriously though, I read just yesterday that docs in Europe are performing something called Duodenal Mucosal Resurfacing which destroys the cells on the lining of the small intestines and causes patients with type 2 diabetes to need way less - or no - medication once the cells regrow. They believe those cells help regulate the body’s insulin response and are damaged by a long-term diet too high in fat and sugar which causes them to malfunction. When they’ve been replaced and function normally, the patient has to maintain a healthy diet to prevent a relapse.
That is an interesting way to approach it, and I wonder if it will be proved to be an effective treatment.
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As to gut bacteria and the connection to things like AD & PD, what are they recommending as the simplest means of helping grandparents. Could it be as simple as just giving them yogurt on a regular basis?
Nobody actually believes it. The researchers will publish this and then move on to other things indicating their lack of any long term interest. Such is the world of research.
“So our findings may help explain that connection and open up an area of future study,” he said.
Don’t hold your breathe.
The recent hype reminds me of the history of chiropractor philosophy and practices which claim that the spinal column is the source of all diseases and you thus you have spinal manipulations for all disease.
People have jumped on the gut biome with the same vigor and fervor.
Let’s see Scientific American published an article way back in 2014,
“How Gut Bacteria Help Make Us Fat and Thin
Intestinal bacteria may help determine whether we are lean or obese
Another job vacancy associated with obesity might be one normally filled by a stomach bacterium called Helicobacter pylori. Research by Martin Blaser of New York University suggests that it helps to regulate appetite by modulating levels of ghrelin—a hunger-stimulating hormone. H. pylori was once abundant in the American digestive tract but is now rare, thanks to more hygienic living conditions and the use of antibiotics, says Blaser, author of a new book entitled Missing Microbes.”
Yeah like we all want H pylori in our guts even though it is known to cause cancer.
So they at least put it into perspective and came down to earth eventually in the same article,
“A group in Amsterdam, meanwhile, is investigating whether transferring feces from lean to overweight people will lead to weight loss. U.S. researchers tend to view such “fecal transplants” as imprecise and risky. A more promising approach, says Robert Karp, who oversees National Institutes of Health grants related to obesity and the microbiome, is to identify the precise strains of bacteria associated with leanness, determine their roles and develop treatments accordingly. Gordon has proposed enriching foods with beneficial bacteria and any nutrients needed to establish them in the gut—a science-based version of today's probiotic yogurts. No one in the field believes that probiotics alone will win the war on obesity, but it seems that, along with exercising and eating right, we need to enlist our inner microbial army.”
Rest assured that no fecal transplants will take place to treat Alzheimer's. There has been clinical use of fecal transplants for treating Clostridium difficile.
So where’s the treatments for treating obesity? Did they all move on now to curing Alzheimer’s?
Where’s the “No one in the field believes that probiotics alone will win the war on Alzheimer’s”.
If this is a breakthrough in research we should expect treatments very early on. The fact is that they are way overstating their case. They aren’t close to a breakthrough.
The theory is very simplistic in what they are proposing and that is that a bacteria is present that is producing a protein that is causing Alzheimer’s. It’s an infection producing disease which we are all very familiar with. If that is the case then why don’t children come down with Alzheimer’s. Why don’t both husbands and wives come down with it together at the same time? They have the same diet and share microbial flora. Explain to me how the gut of an elderly person is completely different from those a few years younger. Making the elderly eat what a six year old eats will cure them? From an epidemiological point of view, there should be target cases with radiating cases from point zero. We see none of that.
There's not enough meat on the bone with that research. I can see why its eye catching but it's intended to be eye catching for the average person and for the wealthy fundraising.
Change "gut biome" to "neurochemistry" and "Alzheimer's" to "mental illness" and you've summed up the cutting edge of psychiatric research that has been cutting the same dull edge for 60+ years.
Change "gut biome" to "neurochemistry" and "Alzheimer's" to "mental illness" and you've summed up the cutting edge of psychiatric research that has been cutting the same dull edge for 60+ years.
The psychiatric nurses went through the channels and asked for a continuing education lecture of laboratory testing in psychiatry. I was volunteered and told to do it. I asked the manager what specifically do they want or have questions on and they said well you know laboratory testing with psychiatric patients. So I went to the chief of staff in pathology and told him I was asked to give a lecture and asked him what I should cover or talk about and he thought for a couple of minutes and I could see his mind working and wheels turning and then he said, "I don't know". I was thinking thanks a lot and left.
I decided to give examples of testing involving medical examples resulting in psychiatric disorders and medical monitoring of psychiatric patients and medications. It was a slide show presentation and in between topics I showed pictures of my Tahiti trip. After the lecture the only questions people asked about was where was that location that the pictures from.
For the record Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's have nothing in common but it does make for sensationalistic pandering.
Also for the record we don't really know whether the worm experiment resulted in the worms coming down with Alzheimer's or Parkinson or a third possibility of the worms suffering from mental illness causing erratic movement. So the same animal experiment could imply all three, some would say.
Nobody actually believes it. The researchers will publish this and then move on to other things indicating their lack of any long term interest. Such is the world of research.
It’s not lack of interest but lack of MONEY
Not as much money to be made by telling people to eat natural food, or don’t take antibiotics which kill off natural gut microbes
MUCH more money to be made for research arms of university medical schools by creating new drugs that can be protected and produce profits for years...
[quote=loves2read;61098223] Nobody actually believes it. The researchers will publish this and then move on to other things indicating their lack of any long term interest. Such is the world of research.
It’s not lack of interest but lack of MONEY
Not as much money to be made by telling people to eat natural food, or don’t take antibiotics which kill off natural gut microbes
MUCH more money to be made for research arms of university medical schools by creating new drugs that can be protected and produce profits for years...[/QUOTE
You seem like a bright person so lets try this, why do you need to do a study showing eating natural food (whatever that means) is healthy for you?
Why not assume that people who are not eating healthy food should eat healthy food and we don't need that study. I just saved you lots of money on such an expensive study. Why not assume people who don't eat healthy don't because of their taste or preference for that food rather than they not knowing it is unhealthy for them?
As far as antibiotics killing off natural (whatever that means) gut microbes, all microbes are natural and some are harmful and deadly and so the term natural has no meaning. Tigers are natural and they can have you for dinner.
So I want you to eat a natural raw diet starting in your twenties all in an effort to prevent Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and or mental illness (demonstrated by infecting worms with bacteria) when you reach 70 years old. Or are you going to wait until you are 60 years of age to start doing that? Are you going to eat Yogurt or take probiotics? In other words how are you going to process the information you learned?
As far as competing for money in research and industry, when has there not been competition for funding in the history of research? The Sistine Chapel was sponsored by the church and they made Michelangelo put fig leafs on all the genitals. If you look at all the early researchers they were all of privilege and money and did things with the money from the king. The NASA space program produced many industrial products. Who made the first personal computer? Competition soon followed.
There has been studies of natural products and supplements, vitamins, and quite of few of those have been failures. They are not pure nor of sufficient strength needed for efficacy. It's like eating a fluffy fungus as a substitute for penicillin. There's also no agreement on concentrations and if you were to ask Dr Pauling about how much vitamin C for people to take you would find it alarming in terms of grams of vitamin C which would be tons of oranges a day and totally unnatural by any definition. Supplements are unnatural and are considered pharmaceuticals. Anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves.
1–people are rarely rational about things that seem to be the best for them if it requires sacrifice
2–some people will never be convinced by “science” and instead shy away from its recommendations
3–and Nothing you said seems to deny that much research is driven by desire for profit
I am not going to argue with how right or wrong a particular diet is for preventing a disease like Alzheimer’s
Or what your lifestyle should be in your 20s to live into the 90s
It seems we all know someone who is the exception to any rule
"Researchers have identified gut bacteria species that appear to play a role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease."
"Previous research has shown a link between the conditions and changes in the gut microbiome, but among the thousands of species that live there, it wasn't easy to identify ..."
"In this study, we were able to show that specific species of bacteria play a role in the development of these conditions."
"We also showed that some other bacteria produce compounds that counteract these 'bad' bacteria. Recent studies have shown that patients with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's are deficient in these 'good' bacteria.
Did anyone read this study? It was performed on worms, by infecting them with human gut bacteria and observing changes in protein metabolism. It's a huge stretch to think this explains the development of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's in humans.
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