Leaking Gut, Leaking Blood Vessels, Leaking Blood Brain Barrier

In today's open access paper, researchers attempt to throw a big tent over three distinct issues in the aging of the body and brain. Firstly, the intestinal barrier fails, allowing bacteria and bacterial metabolites into tissue and the circulation, where they can provoke dysfunction and inflammation. Secondly, blood vessels become leaky, harming surrounding tissues by allowing excessive fluid, inappropriate molecules and cells to escape. Lastly, the blood-brain barrier leaks; this is a more specialized barrier layer surrounding blood vessels in the brain, and when it leaks, the passage of unwanted cells and molecules into the brain again produces dysfunction and inflammation. Can one really draw a circle around these three quite different phenomenon and talk about a unified "leaky syndrome", as the authors of today's paper do? Perhaps so if these issues largely begin with intestinal barrier dysfunction, allowing gut microbes and their inflammatory metabolites into the bloodstream to cause increased dysfunction in blood vessel walls. That this is the primary issue has yet to be determined, but given that we are entering an era in which the aged gut microbiome is both accurately measurable and can be rejuvenated via techniques such as fecal microbiota transplant, flagellin immunization, and so forth, I'd imagine much more will be known a decade from now. Treating Leaky Syndrome in the Over 65s: Progress and Challenges Aging is a natural process associated...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs