Alzheimer’s and the Microbiome Part 1

A few weeks ago I reposted an article from last year to rehash Dr. Dale Bredesen’s three types of Alzheimer’s disease: type 1: inflammatory, type 2: atrophic and type 3: toxic. This week and in the coming weeks, I hope to explain a top contributor to all of these types, how it leads to all three and how to stop it. If you want to prevent the perfect storm of Alzheimer’s, which I believe my mom suffered, one of the biggest steps is optimizing the health of one major part of the body — the microbiome, especially the gut microbiome.

I’m sure most if not all of you have at least heard of the gut microbiome and probiotics, but what are they exactly? And how many people truly understand just how powerfully they impact the health of the human body? I was blown away when I learned the extent. In a nutshell, the microbiome is the colony of microorganisms that live within the human body, most of which are symbiotic — a close and long-term biological interaction between two different organisms to the benefit of both. These microorganisms consist mostly of bacteria but include others, such as viruses, yeast and fungi.

I learned a few weeks ago that “Grain Brain” author Dr. David Perlmutter was offering a 12-episode docuseries called “Alzheimer’s: The Science of Prevention.” I quickly signed up for this free series and was not sorry. Coincidentally, I reached episode 7, “The Gut/Brain Connection,” just as I was setting out to write this post. I learned more about the microbiome in that one roughly 30-minute episode than from anything else combined.

Contributing doctor, Jeffrey Bland, PhD, president of the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute, said the bacteria in the gut can be split into three families: symbiotic, which is friendly and promotes healthy function; commensals, which are neither bad nor good for the body, they just take up space; and parasitic, which offer no benefits and can produce injury to the immune system. The healthy symbiotic bacteria make up about 99 percent of a healthy gut. However, when the microbiome is unhealthy, called dysbiosis, that percentage shifts the other direction. I’ll go more into dysbiosis below. But first, just how extensive is our microbiome and how big of a role do these tiny organisms play in our health?

Experts until very recently believed the microbiome only existed and played a role in the digestive tract, aiding in digestion by breaking down fiber. They now know, however, that the oral and sinus cavities have their own microbiome, as does every organ system, including the skin. These microscopic creatures are so abundant that the human body carries 1,000 times more types of DNA from bacteria than it does from its own DNA, Leo Galland, MD, Director of the Foundation for Integrated Medicine, said in Perlmutter’s “The Gut/Brain Connection” episode.

“Over 90 percent of the substances, the chemicals circulating in your blood, are not produced by your own cells. They’re produced by the microbes, most of whom are in your gut,” he said.

Bland said a gram of stool has more bacteria than the known universe has stars. That’s staggering to think about. Our very lives depend upon microscopic organisms too numerous to fathom. Therefore, optimizing the health of the microbiome should be at the top of everyone’s health priority list.

What’s even more amazing is scientists have discovered these creatures have means of “communicating” with each other throughout the body. UCLA School of Medicine professor Emeran Mayer, MD, in Perlmutter’s series said an “explosion” of research has shown that microbes don’t just live in the gut and break down fiber. The breakdown products, called metabolites, “have vast effects throughout the body, pretty much in every organ.”

“There’s really not a part of the body, including the skin, the liver, the lungs, that is not in some ways in communication with the gut microbiome,” Mayer said. “They have their own microbiomes, but in some ways there’s this connection … a communication between those organisms that live in the gut and produce molecules (that) actually can communicate with all these distant organs.”

Realizing how widespread and abundant the body’s microbiome actually is helps us to understand just how important it is to our health. Essentially, these tiny bugs make us who we are. Life would not be possible without them. They are responsible for keeping our digestive system working, helping to break down food and fortifying the body’s immune system. Want to have a strong immune system? Maintain a healthy gut.

“The gut has this extraordinary, robust immune system called the gastro-intestinal associated lymphoid tissue where more than 50 percent of our antibodies in our bodies are produced in our gut immune system. So the center of our immune system is in the gut,” Bland said.

Microbes also maintain a healthy balance in the oral and sinus cavity, in the genital tract and all organ systems and send signals to all the body’s cells, letting them know that all is well. So what happens when all is not well — when the microbes shift away from the healthy symbiotic bacteria toward the pathogenic bugs? The bacteria send out a very different signal, alerting the cells and other microbes of dysfunction, and the body responds with gusto, preparing itself for battle.

Remember Bredesen’s three main types of Alzheimer’s listed above? Guess what happens when microbes are not given a healthy environment to flourish and grow? The immune system sends out a stress response to fight the toxins causing harm to the microbiome, bringing on chronic inflammation (type 1 Alzheimer’s). This causes a boost in blood sugar as the body floods the tissues with glucose to provide energy for the fight or flight response, leading to insulin resistance and possibly even diabetes if left unchecked (type 2 Alzheimer’s). And the stressors and toxins that damage the microbiome also damage the intestinal lining, preventing the absorption of needed nutrients (also type 2 Alzheimer’s) and weaken the tight junctions between cells in the intestinal lining, causing leaky gut. Leaky gut allows these toxins to seep into the body, creating even more stress and inflammation as the body attacks these “foreign invaders.” The escaped toxins then travel to and damage various other tissues and organs, including the brain (type 3 Alzheimer’s).

A vicious cycle is initiated. As stress and toxins damage the microbiome, the resulting chronic stress/inflammation further damage the gut.

“The relationship between stress and the microbiome is bidirectional,” Galland said. “The microbiome impacts the way your body responds to stress, but stress impacts the microbiome, depending on the nature of stress.”

Now that we know what the microbiome is and how important it is to keep it healthy and thriving, what do we do to restore it? What are these toxins and stressors that have such a profound influence? And after a lifetime of slowly and unknowingly killing our healthy microbes, how do we turn the tide? Stay tuned!