Parkinson's Link to Gut Bacteria Suggests Unexpected, Simple Treatment
sciencealert.com
sciencealert.com
The immune system declines in old age and it migrates from the gut to the brain. Certain groups of gut bacteria like different nutrient environments, so the gut bacteria from this study might like that environment too.
This restored me to perfect function and taught me that my gut microbiome was fucked up for years, even decades.
I cannot believe how good I feel and how perfectly my digestive system functions now. When the constipation hit I thought I was literally dying. Even a 100% raw vegetable diet was not digesting properly and would takes days to exit at first. Any carbs or bread at all would jam me up completely.
I have been maintaining perfect gut function since then by avoiding alcohol and eating a wide range of raw vegetables and cruciferous salads to feed the bacteria. However, I'm able to digest anything now, effortlessly. Remarkable.
I would make a several pound salad as my first meal of the day using cruciferous mix from Trader Joes. Mixed with shredded iceberg, raw vegetables (peppers, broccoli), crumbled corn chips, and par-boiled Tempe, and maybe a bit of shredded cheese. Dressing of choice.
For the first month I ate nothing but the salad(s) each day.
Often Greek yogurt with hulled hemp seeds and flax powder or nuts for desert.
Quick taibata session on the elliptical each day. Trained Krav-maga twice a week.
The most interesting thing to me is that I don't know how it got so bad. I was not eating junk, drinking soda or alcohol. Was getting decent exercise regularly. Drank water religiously. I had no antibiotics. I was admittedly eating a lot of home made bread products and was not eating enough raw foods in the runup to this issue.
I have been chronically constipated on and off for 5+ years now along side a variety of diseases of the brain (ADHD, depression, and epilepsy). Even at points in my life where I wasn’t taking anything that increased serotonin in the gut like an SSRI the constipation has persisted.
Have always felt like there was a link between my gut and brain but never been able to define it and my doctors brush it off. Now I’m starting to explore it on own alongside conventional treatments for my brain conditions.
Currently I’m focusing on natural sources of probiotics like kimchi and kefir. Mostly because I’ve never been able to identify which supplement is worthwhile.
1: https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/news/gut-bacteria-transplant-m...
Unless you get a bad bug and go on heavy antibiotics. I had a bad pneumonia and had 4-day stay at my local hospital. And they pumped so much antibiotics I was sh!tt’n like a goose for weeks
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/widely-used-chemical...
Edit: Very informative replies. Thanks!
But it's not really a money issue (not in a lot of cases anyway) - where it leads to better outcomes, doctors do aim for overdiagnosing to a certain % to cover cases which would be otherwise missed.
You need cofactors, e.g. a B2 deficiency could falsely give the impression of repletion.
This is ON TOP of the really loose grounding of accepted ranges for various vitamins. Many of the levels are established on the basis of avoiding severe disease like vitamin D: "no rickets above this level" and B12: "no anemia above this level." Which is completely different than assessing optimal levels.
This is concerning. Is there anyone keeping a database of optimal rather than minimal levels?
I mean we kind of already know this anyway - "person dies of alcohol poisoning after vodka up the butt" was a legend as a student but also a story of how "x units alcohol" is an oversimplification. There are similar stories with class As and people varying up the modes of ingestion...
Coming back to food I have anecdotally observed that my lactose intolerance reaction is more severe if the lactose is in something creamy. Even lactase pills have reduced effect on that. Although cream may be where the lactose is concentrated for all I know
Science is finding that many chronic diseases, even some that have been thought incurable, are actually tied to lifestyle and diet. So, expect more of these articles.
* Most of the vitamin D we need is actually synthesized by the body. (You still need sunlight to release it.)
* The body can also make vitamin B3 (niacin).
* Vitamin K and B7 (biotin) are made by gut bacteria.
Not only are vitamins important, but minerals are too. We cannot produce minerals ourselves. Magnesium is involved in at least 300 different metabolic processes.
If these essential compounds are not available, metabolic processes become difficult or impossible, eventually leading to chronic diseases that had been thought of as inevitable.
The study of the article found that a subset cases of parkinson are related to lifestyle and diet.
B6, B2 deficiencies in ADHD doi:10.1192/bjpo.bp.116.003491
But that's a deep hole and a good way to accidentally poison yourself. If you've just been diagnosed, you'll have lots of other, approved options to try first.
People with PD are on very different medications, controlled diets (you need to avoid protein at different parts of the cycle), and.... what 'simple treatment'?
The conclusions in that fluff piece are not in the original study. Sure, some bacteria are linked to differences in uptake of some vitamins, but why would adding more vitamins to the diet affect the PD? It isn't like that is the cause of PD, at best a symptom.
Bad science journalism.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41531-024-00724-z
from there:
> Riboflavin (vitamin B2) in humans originates from food and gut microbiota. Therapeutically, riboflavin improves oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, neuroinflammation, and glutamate excitotoxicity, which are related to PD pathogenesis27. In a clinical study, high doses of riboflavin ameliorated motor deficits in PD patients28. In another disease, supplementation of riboflavin in patients with Crohn’s disease decreased systemic oxidative stress, inflammatory effects, and disease activity29. Supplementation of riboflavin to compensate for decreased riboflavin production by gut microbiota may be beneficial in PD patients.
> Biotin (vitamin B7) produces anti-inflammatory substances and decreases inflammation, which leads to the relief of allergy, immunological symptoms, and inflammatory bowel disease30. The effects of biotin on PD have not been reported to the best of our knowledge. In contrast, in multiple sclerosis, open31 and double-blind32 studies showed that biotin ameliorated motor and optical defects.
now these supplements are the tentative suggestion in the article.
what you _may_ validly point out is that these supplements are only identified as of _potential_ helpt, because follow up studies are needed to validate if this really is the case. but neither the study nor the article claim otherwise, right?
> "Supplementation of riboflavin and/or biotin is likely to be beneficial in a subset of Parkinson's disease patients, in which gut dysbiosis plays pivotal roles,"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riboflavin
> Best sources of riboflavin: Beef liver, Chicken liver, Whey protein powder, Almonds
> People at risk of having low riboflavin levels include alcoholics, vegetarian athletes, and practitioners of veganism.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotin
> Best sources of biotin: Chicken liver, Beef liver, Eggs, Peanuts, Sunflower seeds, Pork chop
Offered without comment.
Not the gains I was expecting.
So for example I enter that I can't eat beef liver (presumably via a helper group that I'm vegetarian or Hindu or no beef or something) and it tells me to keep up my chicken liver, whey protein powder, ... intake for riboflavin & biotin.
But doing that across all vitamins etc. at once having entered all the things you don't eat - because it's too much to be on top of otherwise, imo, and I think it's pretty easy to think you eat a balanced and varied diet but actually not have any good source of one or two specific things at all.
As is often the case, the truth is probably a lot more nuanced than “x causes y”.
> Three recent case-control studies conclude that diets high in animal fat or cholesterol are associated with a substantial increase in risk for Parkinson's disease (PD); in contrast, fat of plant origin does not appear to increase risk.
> In aggregate, these findings suggest that vegan diets may be notably protective with respect to PD. However, they offer no insight into whether saturated fat, compounds associated with animal fat, animal protein, or the integrated impact of the components of animal products mediates the risk associated with animal fat consumption.
That is, the underlying cause could very well just be high cholesterol, and that the carnivores in the study were more likely to have high cholesterol than the vegan groups, either due to lifestyle choices (despite veganism itself not implying any sort of healthy lifestyle, there might be a stronger overlap with those choosing veganism and those leading a healthy lifestyle than for carnivores), or due to difference in dietary cholesterol intake.
Later: "Surprisingly, tobacco smoking is also markedly protective with respect to PD"
In general, the conclusions of it are weak because it's a very weak paper. These vegan diets were compared against what? I can't be bothered to follow all sources, but this paper doesn't seem to pose this question either, which is a noticeable omission which smells of agenda.
Are they comparing against people eating random junk like most of the Western world? Then of course any diet eliminating of our ultra-processed food is healthier, be it vegan, pescatarian, ketogenic, paleo, carnivore, Mediterranean, etc.
Pretty sure that's a comment.