26 Jan Gut Inflammation is Associated with Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease

UW School of Medicine and Public Health

The study, recently published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, showed that as levels of calprotectin, an inflammatory marker, increased in the volunteer study participants’ stool samples, so did the amount of amyloid plaque accumulating in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s disease. Levels of Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid also rose. Meanwhile, test scores of the volunteers’ verbal memory function dropped.

Even volunteers who did not have Alzheimer’s disease had lower scores on a memory test correlated with higher levels of calprotectin, according to Barbara Bendlin, professor of medicine, UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

“We showed [that] people with Alzheimer’s disease have more gut inflammation, and among people with Alzheimer’s, when we looked at brain imaging, those with higher gut inflammation had higher levels of amyloid plaque accumulation in their brains,” said Bendlin, who has a doctorate in psychology.

Calprotectin levels in this study and previous studies have been found to rise with older age. One theory is that gut inflammation is caused by changes in the microbiome that occur as people age and this inflammation can further contribute to neurodegenerative diseases. Read more…