2023-07-19 16:02:00
In the end everything is erased: one’s own self, all memories, a whole life. In Germany, more than 400,000 people develop Alzheimer’s dementia every year. The insidious process of destruction of many nerve cells in the brain usually begins in middle age and it probably takes around 20 years before the first symptoms such as forgetfulness, confusion and speech disorders appear. Deposits of proteins such as beta-amyloid and tau fibrils in the brain, immune cells and inflammatory processes are involved in these processes. According to the latest research results, the intestine and the many bacteria living in it, the intestinal microbiome, also play an important role.
Gut and brain have been working together for a long time. “For hundreds of thousands of years, the human body has lived in a kind of symbiosis with the intestinal bacteria,” says neurologist Thorsten Bartsch from the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel, who researches the gut-brain axis in Alzheimer’s dementia. The gut has its own nervous system, the “gut brain,” which is connected to the nervous system in the brain via the vagus nerve. The intestinal bacteria process what food leftovers they get. This results in metabolic products that reach the brain directly via the intestinal wall and the bloodstream or indirectly influence the vagus nerve, the communication highway to the brain.
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#bacteria #Alzheimers #imminent