Probiotics versus Neuroinflammation and Its Consequences

The balance of microbial populations making up the gut microbiome is now known to change with age in ways that promote chronic inflammation. There are more inflammatory microbes passing the intestinal barrier to enter tissue, and more microbes capable of generating harmful metabolites that aggravate cells. The aging of the microbiome is only loosely connected to the aging of the body, however. Animal studies make it clear that the gut microbiome of an old individual can be restored to a youthful balance of populations via fecal microbiota transplant from a young individual, benefits to health and longevity result, and that one intervention lasts for a long time. It is in principle possible to achieve the same result as a fecal microbiota transplant using probiotics, given a large enough sustained dose. In practice, that cannot yet be accomplished, however. The right balance of species would have to be manufactured, and present probiotic manufacture is limited to a very small number of microbial species in comparison to what one finds in the gut microbiome. Even given the point that one or two of the species known to lose abundance with age might be capable of delivering enough of a benefit to be worth it, even if only a fraction of that produced by fecal microbiota transplant, the actual result of present probiotic treatment, the products one can purchase in a store, appears to be at best a comparatively small, short-lived benefit. Still, given what is presently...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs