What’s Going on in Your Gut?

Your stomach and digestive system has a lot to do with your health. I’m sure that is not news to you.

What’s amazing is how much influence it has.

There’s a lot of research showing your gut health has a lot to do with your brain health. Recent studies are showing that you can take the gut microbiota of someone with Alzheimer’s, transfer it to lab animals, and the animals will show signs of Alzheimer’s.

The authors of the study found:

“Alzheimer's patients had a higher abundance of inflammation-promoting bacteria in faecal samples, and these changes were directly associated with their cognitive status.

Professor Yvonne Nolan said: "The memory tests we investigated rely on the growth of new nerve cells in the hippocampus region of the brain. We saw that animals with gut bacteria from people with Alzheimer's produced fewer new nerve cells and had impaired memory."

"People with Alzheimer's are typically diagnosed at or after the onset of cognitive symptoms, which may be too late, at least for current therapeutic approaches. Understanding the role of gut microbes during prodromal -- or early stage- dementia, before the potential onset of symptoms may open avenues for new therapy development, or even individualised (sic) intervention," said Professor Nolan.”

We thought we would put this to the test with one of our assisted living residents. They have Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

We’re working with Dr. Brian Lenzkes who has a practice to help with metabolic health. He recommended we have the resident send in a stool sample to the Diagnostic Solutions laboratory.

The test we did was the GI-Map and Leaky gut test. The GI-Map costs about $300 and the Leaky Gut test adds about $50 to the cost. I don’t believe this is covered by insurance but it couldn’t hurt to ask.

The results show a whole bunch of interesting information. You can see a sample test result here. Diagnostic Solutions also provides a guide for interpreting the results here.

There are several sections for the test results.

1. Pathogens – these include bacterial, parasitic and viral. This is important to know as they would want to be treated right away. The report does note that even though there might be pathogens detected, there are a lot of other factors such as immune health that will determine whether there are symptoms.

Fortunately our resident was completely clear of all the pathogens.

2. Helicobacter Pylori – The report had a separate section for this bacteria which is a contributing factor for a lot of nasty conditions such as ulcers, chronic gastritis, and stomach cancer. Scientists speculate that up to 50% of the world’s population has some kind of bacterial infection with this bug.

Our resident tested negative for this bacteria as well.

3. Commensal/Keystone Bacteria – These are the good bacteria you want to have in your gut. They extract nutrients and energy from our diets, maintain gut barrier function, produce vitamins (biotin and vitamin K), and protect against colonization by potential pathogens.

This one showed our resident was low for a lot of the beneficial bacteria. Including bacteria that are beneficial for cognitive health (Akkermansia muciniphila). From the report it looks like we should work with a good probiotic that contains the strains where our resident is deficient

4. Opportunitstic/Overgrowth Microbes – These are microbes that can cause inflammation and gastroenteritis at high levels. Particularly for individuals who are immune compromised. They can also cause constipation, which is a problem with our resident.

As might be expected, our resident has high levels of several of these bacteria.

The report goes on to show the results of testing for fungi/yeast, parasites, intestinal health markers and H. Pylori antibiotic resistant genes.

Our resident had some health markers out of the good range. All their fungi, parasites and H. Pylori tests came back negative.

I’ll try to follow up with the results of discussions with Dr Lenzkes. But it definitely looks like we have some work to do with our resident’s gut!