{"id":2219,"date":"2016-12-04T23:39:06","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T04:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ipa.local\/?p=2219"},"modified":"2018-07-05T11:04:38","modified_gmt":"2018-07-05T16:04:38","slug":"old-age-altered-microbiomes-can-lead-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internationalprobiotics.org\/home\/old-age-altered-microbiomes-can-lead-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"In Old Age, Our Altered Microbiomes Can Lead to Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"
The aging microbiome<\/strong> bumps into challenges its younger self may not have: chronic diseases, exposure to group living, multiple medications and changes in dentition and swallowing that disrupt diet. There are \u201ca myriad of clinical changes, including a basal proinflammatory state (inflamm-aging), that directly interface with the microbiota of older adults and enhance susceptibility to disease accompany aging,\u201d<\/em> according to Quagliarello.<\/p>\n \u00a0A little background<\/strong>: inflamm-aging <\/a>is caused by the high concentrations of reactants<\/strong> and cytokines<\/strong> which leads to impaired immune responses and is implicated in age-related problems including atherosclerosis and neurodegeneration.<\/p>\n The issues facing the elderly, Quagliarello said, affect the microbiome and can lead to chronic illness. One example is the Clostridium difficile (C. difficile)<\/em> infection. Here\u2019s how it works: antibiotic exposure depletes gut resistance to harmful bacteria such as C. difficile,<\/em> which in turn can become impervious to antibiotic treatments. It\u2019s obviously a vicious cycle with few good outcomes.\u00a0 Fortunately, a solution emerged: fecal transplant<\/strong> is proving to be revolutionary in normalizing a nasty and often fatal infestation. Thus, manipulation of the microbiota is showing promise as novel strategy to influence age-related problems.<\/strong>
\nYale Medical School Professor Vincent Quagliarello, MD<\/a> discussed the vagaries of the microbiome in older adults recently at the Harvard Probiotics Symposium<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nThe microbiota have been implicated in other physical conditions that affect older adults, detailed in \u201cThe microbiota and microbiome in aging: potential implications in health and age-related diseases,\u201d<\/a> which appeared in the Journal of American Geriatric Society in April of 2015 by Heidi Zapata and Vincent Quagliarello.<\/p>\n\n
\nIn his talk, Dr. Quagliarello related how ELDERMET <\/a>and the NU-AGE<\/a> project are moving the research on gut microbiome and the elderly forward.\u00a0 Funded by the Irish government, the ELDERMET project is a coalition of scientists at University College Cork in Ireland. Find many microbiome-associated research articles at this site<\/a>.
\nTheir work studies the relationship between diet, gut bacteria and health status in a large number of elderly Irish subjects.<\/p>\n