Alzheimer’s and Gum Disease: Can One Bacterium Cause Both?

Gum problems affect more than half of the world’s population, but most people choose to ignore their oral health - a decision that can have dire consequences, as it turns out. An increasing number of scientific findings point out how gum disease causing bacteria can spread and affect the entire body, even your brain. In a previous article, we’ve discussed how poor oral health can contribute to heart disease and problems with episodic memory, but an even more worrying finding has been made in 2019, suggesting that a strain of bacteria that is typically involved in gum disease called Porphyromonas gingivalis may be the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

The Science Behind Alzheimer’s Disease
For decades, beta-amyloid plaques and TAU tangles have been considered the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. These plaques and tangles bunch together causing clumps in the brain tissue that interfere with the function of our brain cells. As a result, certain brain functions, such as short term memory, executive functioning, and even emotional perception, just to name a few, become affected, making Alzheimer’s sufferers progressively less and less independent and capable of living life at its fullest.
Indeed, beta-amyloid plaques and TAU tangles are a unique and frequent finding in post-mortem studies in Alzheimer’s patients, and for decades, the reason behind their development was a mystery. One of the major hypotheses was that the cause may be due to an infection, and once again, post-mortem research suggested that it might be a strain of the herpes virus or even a fungus that trigger the condition.

However, these studies were small, and their results too unconvincing for the global medical community to recognize that infections cause the neurodegenerative condition, especially since other factors, such as genetics and age are known risk factors of Alzheimer’s.

The Link Between Gum Disease and Alzheimer’s
In 2019, a new study was published in the Science Advances journal finding a bacterium typically associated with gum disease in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. But the researchers didn’t stop there and did a follow-up study in an attempt to find not only a cause but also a cure for the condition.

The scientists suggested that toxins called gingipains produced by Porphyromonas gingivalis bacteria were to blame for the creation of plaques and tangles, and they developed a drug they called COR388 that blocks these gingipains. During this second experiment, mice were exposed to the Porphyromonas gingivalis bacteria, and after 6 weeks, the bacteria already appeared in their brain and started causing plaques.

Then, the mice were treated with the drug the researchers had developed, which resulted in a significant reduction of plaques in the mice’s brains and halted neurodegeneration. The researchers conclude that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the Porphyromonas gingivalis bacterium, and they are already in the process of conducting clinical trials on human subjects to test the efficacy of the experimental drug.

In an interview with the New Scientist in December of 2019, one of the leading authors of the study Steve Dominy revealed that 570 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s from 95 health centers across the US and Europe were enrolled in the clinical trial, and we should expect the results in 2021.
A Critical View

While the gum disease study definitely uncovered one way the beta-amyloid plaques and TAU tangles characteristic of Alzheimer’s can occur, many leading scientists in the field point out that we should look at the bigger picture instead of stating that Porphyromonas gingivalis is the exclusive cause of Alzheimer’s, as any other microorganism could likewise be responsible for the formation of plaques and tangles.

Still, the research is exemplary, as it makes us reimagine what the plaques and tangles found in Alzheimer's patients' brains really are - a symptom of the disease, instead of its definitive cause. The study also managed to show how an infection considered relatively harmless managed to contribute to the development of the most widespread neurodegenerative condition - Alzheimer’s disease.

The lesson here is clear: good overall health, including dental hygiene and oral health, as well as a timely treatment of any infections, even seemingly minor one, is key in preventing serious future health issues.

Scientists discover why older adults need to get more deep sleep

Poor sleep quality and erratic bedtime may adversely affect the ability of older adults to recall information about past events, a study has found.

Researchers also found unexpected racial differences in the type of sleep patterns tied to lower memory performance across both younger and older African American research participants.

The findings may help open up a new area of research aimed at understanding the potential connection between poor sleep and the memory declines associated with ageing. 

The study also underscores the importance of sleep in maintaining good cognitive functioning.
"The night-to-night variability in the older study participants had a major impact on their performance in tests aimed at evaluating episodic memory," said  an associate professor.

"The association between sleep and memory has been known, but this study's novelty is showing that the connection is particularly evident for older adults and black participants, regardless of age," he said.

Researchers recruited 81 volunteers who were evaluated carefully to screen out those who had mild cognitive impairment or other potentially confounding factors. 

Younger adults were recruited in the age range of 18 to 37 years, while older adults were recruited in the range from 56 to 76 years. Ultimately, 50 adults were selected for the study.

The participants were given accelerometers worn on their wrists to measure sleep duration and quality over a period of seven nights. 

Though they did not measure brain waves, the devices allowed sleep measurements to be done in the participants' own homes. 

The researchers sought to provide a more realistic measurement than testing done in sleep labs, which typically lasts just one night.

Participants were asked to take a memory test that measured electroencephalography (EEG) brain wave activity as they attempted to recall word pairs that had been shown to them earlier. 

Better performance correlated with better sleep in most of the older adults.

The relationship between poor sleep and memory-related brain activity extended to both older and younger black participants -- some of whom were college students. 

To understand the potential causes of the poor sleep, they administered a standardised questionnaire designed to measure stress levels in those participants.

The study found that black adults slept for 36 minutes less than other adults, which translated into a 12 per cent decrease in memory-related brain activity. 

On an average night, black adults in the study spent 15 minutes more time awake after falling asleep than did other participants.

The study also found significant variation among subjects in each age group. 

"Some of our 70-year-old subjects looked like our 20-year-old students. There are many factors that contribute to individual differences," he said.

The study's takeaway message may be that regular sleep is important at any age for the best cognitive performance.

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Alzheimer’s memories could be switched back on with implant

Alzheimer’s sufferers could once again remember the faces of loved ones, or find their way back home, after scientists developed a way to boost memories.

In a groundbreaking pilot study,  researchers recorded memories as they were being formed and then later played them back into the brains of 10 patients.

They found that it increased memory performance by up to 37 per cent.
 
The study focused on improving episodic memory, which is the most common type of memory loss in people with Alzheimer's disease, stroke and head injury.

Episodic memory is information that is new and useful for a short period of time, such as where you parked your car or left your keys.

“This is the first time scientists have been able to identify a patient's own brain cell code or pattern for memory and, in essence, write in that code to make existing memory work better, an important first step in potentially restoring memory loss,” said a professor of physiology/pharmacology and neurology.

“In the future, we hope to be able to help people hold onto specific memories, such as where they live or what their grandkids look like, when their overall memory begins to fail.”

"We envision this system being made into an implant to provide continuous support to a person’s ability to encode and store new memories.

"A patient would visit with a clinician periodically to ensure the system is working properly, but the closed-loop system is being designed to continuously read, analyze, and support the patient’s innate memory function." 

Around 850,000 people are suffering from dementia in Britain, and around two thirds have Alzheimer's diseasee, in which sticky amyloid plaques build up in the brain, preventing brain cells from communicating, and wiping out memory.

For the new study, researchers enrolled 10 epilepsy patients who were already participating in an separate experiment mapping their brains, and so already had electrodes implanted in their heads.

The participants were asked to study a simple image - such as a coloured block - while their brain activity was recorded. Scientists then blanked the screen and asked them to choose the correct image from five options.

They found that when they asked people to remember, while playing back the recorded memory into the hippocampus region of their brains, their performance improved by 37 per cent. The hippocampus is responsible for forming memories, and spatial recognition and is one of the first areas to be damaged in Alzheimer’s disease.

In a second test, participants were shown a highly distinctive photographic image, followed by a short delay, and asked to identify the photo out of four or five others on the screen 75 minutes later. They found that playing back the recorded memories boosted recall by 35 per cent.

“We showed that we could tap into a patient's own memory content, reinforce it and feed it back to the patient,” added the Dr.

"Even when a person's memory is impaired, it is possible to identify the neural firing patterns that indicate correct memory formation and separate them from the patterns that are incorrect.

“We can then feed in the correct patterns to assist the patient's brain in accurately forming new memories, not as a replacement for innate memory function, but as a boost to it.”

Commenting on the research, the experts said the study provided important ‘stepping stones’ into understanding how memories form, which could one day lead to new treatments for Alzheimer's disease.

The Dr. says: “Future tests using this method in people with Alzheimer’s could represent a vitally needed new form of treatment for dementia.

“With no new drug for dementia in the past 15 years, and one person developing the condition every three minutes, it’s more urgent than ever to find new ways to treat the condition.

“These kind of ‘first-in-human’ studies are important stepping stones to understanding how we make memories.”

The Dr. added: “People with Alzheimer’s disease often have difficulty recalling recent events, even while still being able to remember things that happened decades earlier.

"Techniques that boost a person’s ability to lay down new memories could potentially help tackle one of the most common symptoms affecting people with dementia.

“Complex technologies like this take years of research to hone, but improving life changing symptoms like memory loss is an urgent goal for dementia research. To accelerate progress towards new treatments we must see continued investment in research.”

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                                                                                                                                                                                      PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/   

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