Dementias and Microbiota Composition: Is Possible to Revert the Dementia Symptoms Reverting the Microbiota Composition?

Summary

Dementia is the major cause of disability and dependency among older adults worldwide affecting memory, cognitive abilities and behavior, interfering with one's ability to perform daily lives activities. Although age is the strongest known risk factor for the onset of dementia, it is not a natural or inevitable consequence of aging. Dementia not only affects older people, since up to 9% of the cases appear before 65 years. The impact of dementia is highly important in financial terms also in human costs to countries, societies and individuals.

Dementia is an umbrella term for several diseases, being Alzheimer's disease (AD) the most common form, contributing to 60-70% of cases. Other major forms include Lewy bodies Dementias (LBDs) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

The role of the gastrointestinal microbiota in human brain development and function is an area of increasing interest and research. A large number of studies suggest that the gut microbiota can influence the brain, cognition and behavior of the patients, and also modulate brain plasticity, modifying brain chemistry via various mechanisms like neural, immune and endocrine Within these last two years some studies have showed differences in the microbiota of the AD patients from healthy controls. In this sense, increasing number of studies, most of them in animal models, support the notion that probiotics have significant benefit in maintaining homeostasis of the Central Nervous System. And recent studies try to replicate this finding in AD patients with controversial results.

The main objective of DEM-BIOTA project is to improve the knowledge of the relationship between microbiota and dementia. DEM-BIOTA will explore the microbiota differences between dementias: AD, LBDs, that includes: Parkinson disease dementia (PDD) and Lewy Body Dementia (LBD) and FTD-behavioral variant, also in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to study the progression; in our context (Mediterranean diet and lifestyle) and characterize them in relation to neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms as well as patient functionality (dependency level). Moreover, the capacity of a probiotic compound in reverting or improving neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms and patient functionality in a sample of AD patients will be also studied.

Conditions

• Dementia Alzheimers
• Dementia With Lewy Bodies
• Parkinson Disease Dementia
• Dementia Frontotemporal
• Mild Cognitive Impairment

Interventions

OTHER

No intervention

no intervention

DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT

Probiotic supplement

A total of 60 Alzheimer Disease (AD) patients will be recruited, 30 will ingest the probiotic mixture and 30 will ingest placebo (randomized assignment to the groups will be done). The experimental group will take the probiotic ingest daily: Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, Bifidobacterium bifidum, and Lactobacillus fermentum (2 × 109 colony forming units (CFU)/g of each). This mixture of bacteria has been showed to have positive results with 12 weeks treatment.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• University Rovira i Virgili

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Margarita Torrente, Dr · University Rovira i Virgili

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-04-16

Primary Completion

2025-01-31

Completion

2025-02-01

Countries

• Spain

Study Locations