Doctors who treat patients with Parkinson disease know that the disease is often accompanied by a disturbance of the digestive system (constipation, bloating, indigestion, difficulty swallowing …). These symptoms often appear with the first motor disorders.
A new study from the California Institute of Technology in the United States, published in Cell magazine, suggests that these intestinal disorders would not be the consequence of Parkinson’s disease but would play a crucial role from the origin and development of the disorders.
There is a microbial profile specific to patients with Parkinson’s
By studying brain disorders in mice, researchers found that changes in the microbiome could trigger the diseaseof Parkinson’s. When they transplanted fecal samples from people with the disease into sterile mice that were germ-free but genetically engineered to develop Parkinson’s disease, the symptoms worsened. While no symptoms appeared in the mice that received samples of intestinal bacteria people without Parkinson’s disease.
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“What we are extrapolating is that there is a different microbial profile that regulates Parkinson’s disease. Bacteria must release chemicals that activate certain areas of the brain and cause damage.” Explain at the BBC lead author of the study, Dr Sarkis Mazmanian. “More generally, this research reveals that a neurodegenerative disease can have its origins in the intestine and not only in the brain as we had previously thought”.
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