Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia. It progressively worsens multiple aspects of health over time, from short-term memory loss to behavioral changes to loss of bodily functions. The actual cause of Alzheimer’s is currently unknown. One widely-accepted hypothesis proposes that Alzheimer’s is caused by the accumulation of misfolded proteins in the brain. Unfortunately, many drugs targeting misfolded proteins perform poorly in clinical trials, hinting that this hypothesis might be wrong. Misfolded proteins might be another side effect, not the cause.

Researchers recently published a new line of evidence supporting a hypothesis that Alzheimer’s might be a result of an infection by oral bacteria P. gingivalis. The bacteria produces toxins called gingipains that are found to accumulate in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients. The gingipains degrade human proteins, giving rise to the infamous misfolded proteins. The researchers also developed chemical compounds that could neutralize gingipains. Mice injected with gingipains developed degenerate brain cells, while mice that were pretreated with neutralizing compounds beforehand maintained healthy brain cells.

Although this new work might be the much-needed breakthrough in curing Alzheimer’s disease, the hypothesis is not conclusively proven and many questions still remain. Is P. gingivalis actually the cause of Alzheimer’s? Some experts still believe the disease could be caused by a fungal or viral infection. How does the bacteria get from the gum to the brain? What else does the gingipain toxin interact with in the brain? Are the neutralizing compounds safe or even effective in humans? 

Managing Correspondent: Veerasak (Jeep) Srisuknimit

Original Paper: Science Advance

Press article: Science, ScienceNews

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Image Credit: Modified from Pixabay

36 thoughts on “Oral bacteria may be responsible for Alzheimer’s disease

  1. Thanks to the Lord the creator of everything , My mother has made a good progress in using the natural herbs

  2. I have read your writings and I have read articles on this topic in several articles from other sources. I got a lot of information from your writing, is there any other suggestions you can convey regarding the theme of your writing? so that I can get more and more complete information.

    I certainly thank you for writing this article well, hopefully it will become a reference in journals or other scientific writings and can help many people. thanks.

  3. There were some typing errors in my reply which need to be corrected as I mentioned above.
    My reply to Tony is the correct one.
    The reply to Mary Foley had the typing errors that need to be changed.

  4. I need to correct some mistakes that showed up on my comment before it’s published. 1. to say the pain. 2. 1 instead of IO.

    1. Hi Gayle,
      While antibiotics may sometimes be necessary, however, depending on what they are used for, they are not taken without risks.
      Antibiotics get rid of your good gut bacteria as well as your bad gut bacteria, and it takes at least two years or more to get your good bacteria to come back, but just as it takes many years for a rain forest to recover from the devastation of a fire, so it takes many years for your immune system to recover from antibiotics.
      When taking antibiotics, you would be wise to take acidophilus as well, to help your immune system to recover more easily.
      If you’ve already been on antibiotics, maybe you should speak to your health care professional about taking prebiotics to help to feed and replenish your good gut bacteria, but don’t take probiotics or you could have a nasty reaction to them because they feed the bad gut bacteria which feeds on the good gut bacteria.
      Your skin is an organ and toxins are removed through your skin. so you can end up with a nasty itching rash like eczema or psoriasis that can exist for quite a long time.
      Back in the year l903, a very soft toothbrush was used with a little salt in cool, boiled, distilled, and filtered rain water to brush the teeth and gums after each meal, and then the mouth was rinsed out with the rest of the salty water.

  5. Do you have any experience with treatment using the keto diet? There’s a lot of dementia in my family and I always forgot my keys, wallet and phone, but after dropping all carbs I have a much better memory.

    1. Hi Tony,
      My mother had Alzheimer’s disease. The nursing home where she was supposed to be looked after, more often than not, didn’t give her food that she could eat, and if she hadn’t eaten it in ten minutes, the plate of food was taken away. It didn’t matter to them that she couldn’t feed herself, or that she was a vegetarian and didn’t eat meat, so her weight went down so much that she was only skin and bone and eventually, she wouldn’t talk. I asked the manager of the nursing home how long she had to live and they told me about a week. When I arrived home, I pleaded with my whole heart and soul to God for an answer. I told Him that I love my mother and I don’t want her to die. It took a lot of pleading and crying but I kept a it until God gave me an answer, and I heard it clearly from Him in just one word, “Nourishment”. It came to me supernaturally.
      MY sister had given me the book “Raw Energy by Leslie Kenton” and I had been on that diet quite some years ago, so I knew how great it makes you feel and look. That’s why I decided to feed my mother with all raw foods apart from the fish which had to be cooked.
      Because the nursing home had lost my mother’s false teeth, I had to blend everything into a drink, or cut it up so finely that she didn’t need to chew it. It didn’t help that they brought in dried toast and an egg for her breakfast each morning or that they didn’t feed her the food that I had prepared and brought in for them to give her for her evening meals. When I asked for the week’s food containers, I was told that they were in the refrigerator, and of course, they were full of food, so my mother had only one meal a day.
      I noticed that within a week she had improved quite a lot, and after a month, she was chatting and happy, but still very weak in strength. Continuing on with the diet and making sure that she had all the necessary nutrients, my mother seemed to be back to her old self again, laughing and joking and talking about all sorts of things. I had my mother for another three years and three months, but the nursing staff let her fall out of bed onto the ceramic floor when they came to wash her. The fall broke her ankle and wrist, and they had her lying on the side where she had most of the bruising so that we wouldn’t notice how bad it really was. The nursing home matron said that the doctor came in to examine my mother, and he said that the swelling was Lasix in the blood.
      When my mother crossed her arms and wouldn’t put them down, I asked her what was wrong and she said “the pain”. This is when the matron told me that they gave her Panadol for the pain relief. I told them that my mother needs to go to the hospital for treatment, but they wouldn’t allow it because her husband who had since died, had filled in a form that she wasn’t to go into the hospital. My mother was put into Palliative Care and she was put on a morphine drip. She died a few days later after I saw the nurse give her five pumps of morphine. My sister came down from Queensland and because the plane was late she didn’t get to see my mother while she was still alive, but she examined mum a few moments after mum had died and she said that our mother’s wrist and ankle were broken, (that’s something we weren’t told about).
      Please don’t leave anyone in the care of a nursing home without watching carefully that they are given enough to drink and are fed and cared for appropriately. God bless you and your family and I praise God for His answer to my prayers.
      Valerie.

  6. Does the regular use of a mouthwash (e.g. Listerine) prevent these bacteria from settling in a person’s mouth?

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