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Interesting... I have a history going back 20 years of stomach ulcers caused by H-pylori. I'm delighted to see that it also has beneficial effects. Nic 59/17 On 23 May 2011 09:39, mschild <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Mouse study finds stomach ulcer-causing microbes may also affect brain > By Tina Hesman Saey > > > NEW ORLEANS — Brain cells may be the latest victim of a bacterial bad guy > already charged with causing ulcers and stomach cancer. > > Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that lives in the stomachs of about half the > people in the world, may help trigger Parkinson’s disease, researchers > reported May 22 at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. > Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder that kills dopamine-producing > cells in some parts of the brain. People with the disease have trouble > controlling their movements. About 60,000 new cases of the disease are > diagnosed each year in the United States. > > Some previous studies have suggested that people with Parkinson’s disease are > more likely than healthy people to have had ulcers at some point in their > lives and are more likely to be infected with H. pylori. But until now those > connections between the bacterium and the disease have amounted to > circumstantial evidence. > > Now researchers are gathering evidence that may pin at least some blame for > Parkinson’s disease on the notorious bacterium. > > Middle-aged mice infected with the ulcer-causing bacterium developed abnormal > movement patterns over several months of infection, said Traci Testerman, a > microbiologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in > Shreveport. Young mice infected with the bacterium didn’t show any signs of > movement problems. Testerman’s colleague, neuroscientist Michael Salvatore, > found that Helicobacter-infected mice make less dopamine in parts of the brain > that control movement, possibly indicating that dopamine-making cells are > dying just as they do in Parkinson’s disease patients. > > The bacteria didn’t have to be alive to cause the problem. Feeding mice killed > H. pylori produced the same effect, suggesting that some biochemical component > of the bacterium is responsible. > > A candidate for the disease-causing molecule is modified cholesterol. > Helicobacter can’t make its own cholesterol, so it steals cholesterol from its > host and then sticks a sugar molecule on it. The structure of the modified > cholesterol resembles a toxin from a tropical cycad; people in Guam who have > eaten the plant's seeds have developed a disease called ALS-parkinsonism > dementia complex. Testerman and her colleagues are trying to determine if the > modified cholesterol alone can lead to Parkinson-like symptoms in mice or if > some other factor from the bacterium is also needed. > > Even if the scientists show that H. pylori can cause or contribute to > Parkinson’s disease, it’s not clear whether getting rid of the organism would > be a good thing. Although the bacterium causes ulcers and stomach cancer, it > also helps protect against allergies, asthma and esophageal cancer and other > acid reflux diseases. It is hard to know at this point exactly how letting > Helicobacter stay or making it go will affect any individual person, said > microbiologist Stanley Maloy of San Diego State University. But it is clear > that a possible link between Parkinson’s disease and the stomach bacterium can > no longer be ignored. > > “There’s enough solid data that it would be wrong not to look into it more > closely,” Maloy said. > http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/74653/title/Suspect_bacterium_may_trigger_Parkinson%E2%80%99s > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn