Keeping gut bacteria in balance could help delay age-related diseases, UCLA study finds

Why do some people remain healthy into their 80s and beyond, while others age faster and suffer serious diseases decades earlier? New research led by UCLA life scientists may produce a new way to answer that question — and an approach that could help delay declines in health. Specifically, the study suggests that analyzing intestinal bacteria could be a promising way to predict health outcomes as we age. The researchers discovered changes within intestinal microbes that precede and predict the death of fruit flies. The findings were published in the open-source journal Cell Reports. “Age-onset decline is very tightly linked to changes within the community of gut microbes,” said David Walker, a UCLA professor of integrative biology and physiology, and senior author of the research. “With age, the number of bacterial cells increase substantially and the composition of bacterial groups changes.” The study used fruit flies in part because although their typical life span is just eight weeks, some live to the age equivalent of humans’ 80s and 90s, while others age and die much younger. In addition, scientists have identified all of the fruit fly’s genes and know how to switch individual ones on and off. In a previous study, the UCLA researchers discovered that five or six days before flies died, their intestinal tracts became more permeable and started leaking. In the latest research, which analyzed more than 10,000 female flies, the scientists found that they were ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news