Does the Aging of the Gut Microbiome Contribute Meaningfully to Hearing Loss?

In today's open access paper, researchers discuss the link between the gut microbiome, chronic inflammation in aging, and the onset of age-related hearing loss due to hair cell death and destruction of axons connecting hair cells to the brain. It is definitively the case that changes in the balance of microbial populations in the intestine contributes to rising inflammation in older individuals. But how significant is this effect in comparison to other sources of chronic inflammation, such as excess visceral fat tissue, senescent cells, molecular waste and debris resulting from cell death and dysfunction due to other processes of aging, and so forth? It is very hard to answer that sort of question without fixing just the one contributing cause of inflammation in isolation, without affecting any of the others, and then see what happens. Identifying the mechanism is one thing, assessing its relative importance quite another. That said, a study to determine whether or not the gut microbiome contributes significantly to age-related hearing loss could be started tomorrow, were there someone willing to put up the funds and manage the regulatory burden that attends even simple tests in humans. Gather a hundred aged volunteers in the early stages of age-related hearing loss, perform fecal microbiota transplants from young donors, and then assess the progression of their condition over the next five years or so. It is well established in animal models that fecal microbiota tran...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs