Bacteriophages May Play An Overlooked Role in Parkinson’s disease

[Wally]

Researchers have discovered substantial differences in the abundance of bacteriophages in patients with Parkinson’s disease compared with people who do not have the neurodegenerative disorder.

The findings indicate bacteriophages may be an “overlooked driver” of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and a potential therapeutic target, according to George Tetz, MD, PhD, CEOof the Human Microbiology Institute (HMI), a nonprofit, multidisciplinary microbiome-focused organization based in New York.

“Our research is the first to show the role of bacterial viruses (bacteriophages) as human pathogens,” he told Infectious Disease News.

For the study, Tetz and colleagues analyzed the fecal microbiome of 32 patients with PD and 28 healthy controls. Their objective was to identify alterations in the microbiota that may be associated with PD onset or progression. . . .

See, https://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/gastrointestinal-infections/news/online/{ae46cae7-e307-49f1-9aca-8625d93e9131}/bacteriophages-may-play-role-in-parkinsons-disease (June 11, 2018) - Tetz G, et al. Abstract 117. Presented at: ASM Microbe; June 7-11, 2018; Atlanta.

 

[alex3619]

I started asking questions about bacteriophages and human disease maybe two decades ago. There appeared to be no evidence for it. I even put it to KDM I think, as a possible reason for ME. Its nice to see someone looking at this, but I think we need far more research to understand a link, if any. Keep in mind that causation is much harder to pin down than association.

 

[Hip]

There is some preliminary evidence that Parkinson’s is linked to enterovirus infection of the brainstem. So enterovirus may be involved in Parkinson’s, just as it is in ME/CFS. Since enterovirus also infects the gut, it might be this gut enteroviral infection which creates alterations in the microbiome, rather than these alterations in the microbiome causing Parkinson’s or ME/CFS.

 

[FMMM1]

I started asking questions about bacteriophages and human disease maybe two decades ago. There appeared to be no evidence for it. I even put it to KDM I think, as a possible reason for ME. Its nice to see someone looking at this, but I think we need far more research to understand a link, if any. Keep in mind that causation is much harder to pin down than association.

Remember Maureen Hanson's paper showing evidence of gut permeability? Interestingly this article proposes a link to gut permeability:
Tetz and his team have been studying the role of bacteriophages -- viruses that infect bacteria -- in a variety of diseases for several years. In 2016, he published an article in Gut Pathogens, first detailing how bacteriophage infections caused "increased intestinal permeability" in rats. Further research on rats was published the next year in Scientific Reports, where Tetz cited research that "concomitant gut dysfunction" could play a role in Crohn's disease, IBD, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, autism, cancer, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases.
From https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/asmmicrobe/73475

Don't suppose you could suggest a link to Unutmaz's findings: see https://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/montreal-me-cfs-ii-stopping-pem-the-antibody-subset-and-unutmaz’s-big-surprise.60183/

 

[alex3619]

Don't suppose you could suggest a link to Unutmaz's findings

Not really. Its clear there might be a link, this could be very important, but there is a long way to go. The other thing with gut immune changes is it works both ways ... microbes and immune system modify each other all the time. I like to think of it as an ecology.

There might also be a link to other T cell issues that have been found. The T cell research looks to be heating up.

 

[Murph]

Phages might explain some of the observed mysteries of gut bacteria: Gut bacteria vary over time but remain specific to a person.They can also get "out of whack" and remain that way.

One possible reason is that the kind of phages people have determine what gut bacteria thrive. In the same way a virus can ravage a population of a particular animal, a phage might make life very hard for certain types of bacteria. That could be good or bad. Phages might determine whether someone has a 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' set of gut bacteria. It could also, for example, be the phages that drive out C.Difficile in FMT.

So I'm excited about this research.

Scientists are obsessed with gut bacteria, but only because they are larger and therefore easier to find and measure. The phages are way more numerous and once we have the technology to track them down I think it likely we will find clinical relevance in a lot of circumstances.

Incidentally, strong recommend on this piece: https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/navy-phage-viruses-for-antibiotics-crisis

 

[Wally]

@Murph - get article that you linked to above (Reply #6). Thanks so much for sharing - really interesting story.

Makes you wonder if some of the sickest ME/CFS patients with gastro issues could be dealing with something like this and antibiotics will not be able to address these pathogens. This has probably already been looked at by Ron Davis for Whitney, but I will pass this info. on by tagging @Janet Dafoe (Rose49) and also send it to a few other people that I know are not regularly here on the Forum.

Also, feel free to post the article in a new thread, if you think it might be helpful to have it show up with its own title to get more views.

 

[Wally]

@Murph - just saw that the article you linked already has a thread that you posted last year (linked the thread below). Just goes to show that if you are unable to stay on top of new posts, you may miss some good ones. Thanks for adding the article to this thread, so those of us who may not have seen it back in 2017 get a second chance to read it.

thttps://forums.phoenixrising.me/ind...uses-collected-by-the-navy.51245/#post-846656