Alzheimer’s and the Microbiome Part 3 – Leaky Blood-Brain Barrier
I’ve pretty thoroughly covered the causes and consequences of leaky gut. Maintaining a healthy microbiome is the foundation of overall health, and disrupting that balance leads to so many chronic conditions, including a plethora of brain issues. But how? Many people struggle to fathom how the goings-on in the colon can directly impact neuronal function in the brain. How is it possible that the gluten and refined sugar I’m eating are causing my anxiety and depression? It’s crazy to think about, but that’s exactly what they did to me. The answer lies in a leaky blood-brain barrier (BBB).
Leaky Blood-Brain Barrier
The BBB to me has always been this powerful, impenetrable fortress that protects the brain from any foreign invaders hitching a ride in the bloodstream. Who knew it was just as vulnerable as the gut, breaking down in the same way? And who knew how closely these two were tied in the development of Alzheimer’s disease?
This discovery totally fascinated me. I spent so many years believing the brain to be almost wholly unconnected to the rest of the body. I had never made the connection until someone spelled it out for me. Now, it seems so obvious, common sense, that I wonder how I didn’t connect the dots sooner.
Well, it all came down to that blood-brain barrier. When you spend most of your life imagining the barrier to be an unbreachable steel fortress, impervious to all external threats, you can’t imagine your brain falling victim to these toxins. But when you finally realize it’s just as human as the rest of the body, you suddenly have a paradigm shift. When I gave up gluten, I learned just how much the sticky protein found in wheat, barley and rye had affected my brain, but I didn’t understand how. I still wasn’t able to make the connection. Then Dr. Dale Bredesen helped me to understand.
Bredesen writes in his book, “The End of Alzheimer’s,” that the brains of people with the disease have been found to be riddled with heavy metals, harmful bacteria and other toxins, things from which the BBB is supposed to protect the brain. He says in an unhealthy environment, the barrier breaks down over time in the exact way it does the gut and these invaders get in and do some serious damage. These toxins get into the bloodstream via leaky gut, poor oral hygiene, external wounds, etc., and then penetrate the brain through the leaky barrier. If you have a leaky gut, you have a leaky blood-brain barrier.
According to the MINDD (Metabolic, Immunologic, Neurologic, Digestive, Developmental) Foundation, a leaky brain is an inflamed brain.
“[T]he stomach and small intestine contain a lining similar to the blood-brain barrier [that] also keeps harmful substances from entering the gut,” according to the MINDD Foundation. “Therefore, many of the same factors that cause a leaky gut — poor gut health, unhealthy diet, food intolerances, food sensitivities, toxins and infections — can also create a leaky brain.”
The foundation lists five main causes of leaky brain: gut infections, leaky gut, autoimmune disease (which leaky gut often causes), mental health conditions and stress and vagus nerve dysfunction. Breseden says a leaky BBB is often found very early in people with Alzheimer’s, and their brains have been found to be “a veritable zoo of organisms.” The numerous pathogens in the brain cause chronic inflammation, creating what Bredesen describes as a cold war, unlike an infection, which is like a hot war.
“No single one [organism] is the cause of the disease, the way Borrelia is the cause of Lyme disease and Treponema is the cause of syphilis,” he writes in “The End of Alzheimer’s.” “Instead, Alzheimer’s actually reflects a protective response to many different infectious, inflammatory, or toxic insults.”
Getting on your nerves
Amazingly, the bloodstream isn’t the only means of transport for toxins. I was astounded to learn they also are carried via the nerves, especially the vagus nerve from the stomach and the trigeminal from the mouth.
The vagus nerve actually serves as a direct, bidirectional highway between the gut and the brain, according to the docuseries, “The Gut Solution.” This two-way street closely ties the brain and the gut and is the reason gut issues and food sensitivities cause anxiety, depression, brain fog and a host of other cognitive issues.
Studies have actually found that every round of antibiotics taken (10 days to two weeks) increases a person’s risk for depression by 25 percent. Doctors on “The Gut Solution” said we cannot have a healthy brain without a healthy gut, and when working to optimize brain health, optimizing gut health must be the starting point.
Gum disease – not just bad for the heart
The bacteria that causes gum disease — gingivitis — along with other oral bacteria, have been found repeatedly in Alzheimer’s brains, Bredesen says. So has the Herpes simplex virus. He says microbes also can enter the brain through the nose, mouth and eyes when the BBB is compromised, especially noting the nasal and sinus cavity as a “critical determinant in Alzheimer’s disease type 3 [toxic].”
Herpes simplex virus “lives for years in the nerve cells that supply your face and lips — your trigeminal ganglion cells — and sallies forth during times of stress or sunburn to cause cold sores,” he writes. “It can also migrate right back up the same nerve and into the brain, producing the mild, chronic inflammatory response — the cold war kind — associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”
Bredesen in August interviewed via a video chat on Facebook Dr. Charles Whitney, founder of Revolutionary Health Services and leading advocate on bridging the “oral-systemic gap” between dentistry and medicine. They discussed the powerful connection between oral and cognitive health. Whitney said the connection between oral and cardiovascular health is well known and documented, but most people don’t consider its effects on the brain.
Bredesen says in the introduction to the interview that if you follow the pathway to how toxins enter the brain, “one of the most striking places that these lead you” is to the oral cavity, from the above-mentioned gingivitis to the toxic heavy-metal mercury found in people’s amalgam tooth fillings, which has been shown repeatedly to contribute to Alzheimer’s.
“If you decrease that [mercury in the mouth], you see an improvement in cognitive decline and it’s been documented many times,” he said, recommending people with amalgam fillings replace them with the modern fillings that don’t contain mercury.
Taking action
For me, I’ve now nearly eliminated my gut issues through my diet changes, good exercise and regular prebiotic and probiotic consumption. (Much more on this next time.) My oral health, on the other hand, had one big toxic obstacle threatening my brain. I had one large amalgam filling on my lower back molar, and to make matters worse, a piece of it had chipped off years ago. I had no idea part of it had broken off until I felt the hole, so I must have swallowed it. Great. Talk about flooding the body with mercury!
I wasn’t experiencing any pain in that tooth, so I waited until my next regular cleaning to tell my dentist about it. He said he could refill it if I wanted but if it wasn’t bothering me, there wasn’t a need. I had no idea at the time that amalgam fillings contain mercury, nor that they contribute to Alzheimer’s. I believed my dentist that it wasn’t a big deal and let it go. Several years passed, and I noticed the hole where the filling used to be was slowly getting bigger — more mercury coursing through my body. I still didn’t know this, however. Then I read “The End of Alzheimer’s.” I was not pleased my dentist had told me not to worry about it.
At my next cleaning in May 2018, I asked about completely replacing the filling, which Bredesen urges people to do right away. I had a different dentist this time and she said absolutely, I needed to get rid of that toxic filling. I wondered about the process, imagining them being able to just pop it out somehow. Nope.
They used their drill to grind it out, just like they do cavities, all the while keeping my mouth propped open as wide as it could go and packed with gauze and maintaining a continuous vacuum to ensure my mouth stayed completely dry and all particles of the filling were sucked out. I was thankful for the extra care they took to ensure none of it was swallowed or absorbed, and now that it’s done, I’m glad it’s fixed. But the process was very long and somewhat painful. If it stopped the continuous leaching of mercury into my body, however, it was well worth it.
Whitney in his interview with Bredesen recommended people work with their dentists to clear biological toxins from the mouth, including regular brushing and flossing and dentist cleanings. He also said to use a strong antiseptic mouthwash, such as Listerine, for a time determined by their dentist, to kill all the bad microbes and then switch to a probiotic designed specifically for the oral and sinus cavity to rebuild a healthy microbiome, just as in the gut. He stresses, however, to use mouthwash only temporarily to kill the harmful bacteria because continuous use, obviously, prevents the healthy microbiome from establishing and flourishing.
I’ve always taken pride in my oral health and don’t have gingivitis or other issues. But I was eager to follow his advice just to cover my bases. I rinsed with Listerine every evening for a week this past September and then started taking Dr. David Williams Probiotic Advantage Oral and Sinus, which I found highly rated on Amazon. I didn’t notice any major improvements in my oral/sinus health, but I also didn’t have any major issues to begin with. I did notice slightly clearer sinuses, which always gives me trouble that time of year with allergies.
Then at the end of October I caught a bad cold. In the two weeks that followed I regularly rinsed with Listerine, as I always do when I’m sick, to help kill the germs. So I thought I better go another round with a sinus/oral probiotic. I doubted the efficacy of the previous tablet, and this time wanted to try a nasal spray to directly impact my sinuses. I decided to try LiviaOne Organic Probiotics Nasal Spray. I really love this stuff. All congestion has cleared up, and the saline solution helps moisturize my normally very dry sinuses. Only time will tell if the probiotic will help prevent future sinus issues, but so far so good.
Testing for leaky blood-brain barrier
Bredesen recommends getting the Cyrex Array 20 blood test, which evaluates the response to leaked BBB proteins, to learn the permeability of the barrier. The test results, he says, should be negative. I have not gotten this test yet but plan to at some point.
For now I’m working diligently to maintain a healthy gut and oral/sinus cavity while avoiding heavy metals and other toxins to the best of my ability. Next time I will discuss at length just how I’m doing this.