One great frustration of longer-living humans is that millions of us will one day lose our minds. Our essence will whither away, causing the rest of us to ponder just how substantial the trove of our memories and experiences really are.
This existential threat is terrifying since, despite armies of brilliant researchers and billions of dollars, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease and the many other forms of neurodegeneration. Nor are the underlying causes well understood, beyond the primary risk factor of aging, and in some cases the role of errant genes.
Now comes a possible culprit that falls outside of mainstream research, though researchers have discussed it for decades: bacteria. Yes, those tiny single-cell beasties that infest nearly every nook and cranny of our bodies. Along with this bacteria-causes-dementia theory comes a possible treatment or cure for Alzheimer’s that is also as unorthodox as it is as yet unproven: antibiotics.
The latest dementia-microbe proposition comes from University of California at San Francisco psychiatrist Steve Dominy. He studies neurocognitive disorders in HIV-positive patients, including the contribution of proteins from the gut that pass through the blood-brain barrier and may affect the neural health of AIDS patients.
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From this work Dominy has detected what he believes is a link between a specific bacteria and some forms of dementia. He co-founded Cortexyme, which has raised $2.5 million to investigate his idea, one of the first ever companies in what might be termed the “bacterial neurodegeneration” space.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Are Microbes Stealing Your Mind?
