Parkinson's Link to Gut Bacteria Suggests Unexpected, Simple Treatment

Here's the paper if you'd like to skip the horribly ad-laden science alert site.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41531-024-00724-z

These guys say it's a certain strain of gut bacteria that causes Parkinson's:

https://yle.fi/a/74-20030498

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.

Very interesting. I'm 45 and recently became chronically constipated. I determined that I had somehow killed off my gut bacteria and began a treatment of eating nothing but cruciferous salads each day, supplementing with probiotics (with as many bacterial strains as I could get). I was eating yogurts regularly, but none of those contained enough bacterial variety (you need many more strains to maintain health).

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.

This is very interesting when thinking about the known link to higher Parkinsons/Alzheimers risk for people that are exposed to fungicides / biocides. Gut bacteria synthesize plenty of vitamins for the body, so it's not far-fetched to think that killing off a fraction of your gut biome due to exposure to these substances will lead to vitamin deficiencies and neurological problems. There are studies that show transplanting gut bacteria from healthy people can alleviate some motor symptoms of Parkinsons [1]. So take good care of your gut bacteria!

1: https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/news/gut-bacteria-transplant-m...

This seems odd, as someone who has no medical knowledge. If it's just adding B vitamins, then a lot of people take vitamins. Especially when diagnosed with something as terrible as Parkinson's. I would expect to hear some anecdotal evidence on that for a diseases that is so common.

Edit: Very informative replies. Thanks!

I really hope we dig into the gut processing of B group a bit more. Another candidate for improvements there is some types of ADHD. Some better defined links there would by awesome.

Great, they identified differences in gut bacteria. Their control group was usually the spouses, so they were geographically similar. Wonderful.

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.

From the article:

> "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.

My Partner, who is 66 years old, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease last year. We noticed that he was experiencing hallucinations, slow movement, disturbed sleep, and twitchy hands and legs when at rest. He had to stop taking pramipexole (Sifrol), carbidopa/levodopa, and 2 mg of biperiden because of side effects. Our family doctor recommended a PD-5 treatment from naturalherbscentre. com, which my husband has been undergoing for several months now. Exercise has been very beneficial. He has shown great improvement with the treatment thus far. He is more active now, does more, and feels less apathetic. He has more energy and can do more activities in a day than he did before. As far as tremors I observe a progress, he improved drastically. I thought I would share my husband's story in case it could be helpful, but ultimately you have to figure out what works best for you. Salutations and well wishes