GRAND RAPIDS, MI — New research coming from Michigan-based researchers seems to indicate that the microbes in the gut may play a key role in some of the development of Parkinson’s disease, a brain disorder affecting over 10 million people worldwide.
The study — which was helmed by the late Dr. Viviane Labrie of Van Andel Institute (VAI) alongside peers at VAI, Beaumont Health, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, and Oregon Health & Science University — focuses on the relationship between the brain, the gut’s synthesis of toxic bile acids and the development of Parkinson’s.
Dr. Stewart Graham, director of Metabolomics Research at Beaumont Health, said he has been involved in previous research involving Parkinson’s in the blood and brain, but the connection between the brain and gut felt natural due to their close relationship.
“If you talk to any scientist that’s interested in the gut or the microbiome, they’re going to tell you that the gut is also the second brain of the body,” Graham said.
The long-range goal would be to see if bile acid treatment drugs on the market potentially could be repurposed to treat Parkinson’s, but doctors point out it’s too soon to know if that will be the case.
The recent study was based on previous work done on mice models with the goal of developing a reliable preclinical test in 2016.
Dr. Stewart Graham, director of Metabolomics Research at Beaumont Health, worked on the study which demonstrated a link between the gut's microbiome and the development of neurotoxic bile acid found in Parkinson's sufferers. (Contributed photo by Beaumont Health)
With optimistic findings, Graham said the team worked with a group in Norway to obtain human models that they could apply their findings to. They would also go on to work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation to gain study samples, which would take steps to create a reliable test and potentially push scholarship further.
“The problem with this is the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease isn’t that accurate, and it’s all dependent on the individual clinician who is doing the diagnosis or performing the tests,” Graham said. “So the idea is that if we have this test, we can diagnose Parkinson’s earlier.”
Their work found that the development of neurotoxic bile acid was apparent in the gut of their subjects, resulting in the development of Parkinson’s in some patients. With these shifts not seen in healthy control populations, Graham said that the gut, which is a hub for both healthy and potentially problematic microflora, is the key to diagnosing and tracking Parkinson’s early on.
“We have the gut from Parkinson’s sufferers and we were looking at the microbiome and we were profiling all the bacteria within the gut to see which ones were leading to the increase in this potentially secondary bile acids or potentially neurotoxic bile acids which we were previously seeing with Parkinson’s disease,” Graham said.
Graham said that while the study is promising, significant work has to be done on larger populations because of the individuality of the disease rooted in genetics. The group hopes to continue research in conjunction with organizations like the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has access to massive cohorts of Parkinson’s sufferers.
The group hopes to see practical outcomes as well, such as tests that can work in conjunction with a clinician’s diagnosis to increase reliability and accuracy.
Down the road, Graham said the group hopes to see this information pan out to help with treatment for Parkinson’s.
“I’m the eternal pessimist, so we have to make it really, really conservative...,” Graham said. “I don’t want to give people false hope at the end of the day because a lot of the time, we go down rabbit holes and there’s nothing that comes from it. But with our initial data,[...] everything is pointing in the right direction.”
Read more:
Train derails in Escanaba, investigation and clean up underway
Michigan hockey relieved to be back on ice, faces tough challenge after 2-week layoff