Stroke, Gut Microbiome, Inflammation and.... Autism.
By Teresa Conrick
Stroke Alters Gut Microbiome, Impacting Recovery - What About Vaccine Injury and Autism?
Yes, it just keeps coming. Our good friend Birgit Calhoun, a fellow truth-seeker here at Age of Autism, sent this study to us as she too, is keeping tabs on the Microbiome and Autism. Thank you so much, Birgit. Let's take a look:
Scientists are finding increasing evidence that the stomach and the brain are linked via microbes and the immune system. Researchers from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany have found that inducing strokes in mice altered the animals’ gut microbiota, triggering an immune response that traveled back to the brain and worsened the severity of the lesions. When the researchers transplanted fecal bacteria from healthy mice into germ-free rodents that had suffered strokes, the latter animals made a better recovery than mice that didn’t receive the healthy bacteria, the researchers reported this week (July 12) in The Journal of Neuroscience .
Research has shown that ischemic strokes produce an inflammatory response in the brain, which activates lymphocytes—particularly T cells. Depending on their fate, these T cells can help or worsen the brain’s recovery. Accumulating evidence now suggests that microbes in the gut can influence immune activity in the brain via the so-called “gut-brain axis.” Anrather and colleagues published a study in March [ "antibiotic-induced alterations in the intestinal flora reduce ischemic brain injury in mice, an effect transmissible by fecal transplants." ] showing that antibiotic-induced changes in gut microbiota affected the outcome of stroke, but the opposite effect—how stroke impacts the gut microbiome—had not been investigated until now.
To find out, the researchers transplanted fecal microbiota from mice that had suffered strokes into the guts of germ-free mice, and then induced strokes in the latter group of animals. The animals that received transplanted microbiota from the brain-injured mice had significantly larger stroke infarct volumes compared with mice that received sham transplants, the researchers found. In addition, the mice that received transplants from the post-stroke mice also had higher expression of the inflammatory T cells Th1 and Th17. When the researchers fluorescently labeled immune tissue in the intestines of mice after the animals suffered strokes, they found that T cells in the animals’ guts migrated to the brain two to three days after the stroke, where they exacerbated the brain injury.
To see whether gut microbiota could limit brain damage from stroke, Liesz’s team performed fecal transplants from healthy mice into animals that had just suffered strokes, which resulted in smaller brain lesions, the researchers found. This finding was linked with an increase in the number of regulatory T cells, which help protect the brain from injury.
Let's summarize:
Stroke (brain injury) traveled negatively to the gut MICROBIOME by altering bacteria >> Then the altered bacteria triggered an adverse immune response back to the brain (worsening the stroke) >> Then healthy fecal bacteria transplanted into the gut gives better recovery (healthy bacteria replacing unhealthy bacteria)>> Mice with no fecal transplant did not have as good of a recovery.
This line of research is so important for AUTISM as so many have suffered vaccine reactions with developmental regression and now it is reported that up to 90 percent of autistic children also suffer gastrointestinal disturbances ( ie. GUT MICROBIOTA).
The conclusion from the researchers -- "These findings highlight the key role of microbiota as a potential therapeutic target to protect brain function after injury."
My conclusion --These MICROBIOME connections are shining a much needed light on the plight of thousands.
Teresa Conrick is Contributing Editor for Age of Autism.
Yep, loads of studies coming out on this now. The gut is probably one of the biggest factors when it comes to brain health, and inflammation in the gut will likely cause inflammation in the brain too. Looking after our microbiome is key for good health, and funnily enough, that means getting back to the natural ways of living, lots of sunlight, fresh air, good water, food, etc, etc. It's quite simple but not necessarily easy because of today's culture.
Posted by: Peter | August 27, 2016 at 06:11 AM
The microbiome is becoming linked to pretty much everything these days, it's become quite the hot topic!! I have a Google Alert setup to send me an email whenever there's some new news on microbiome, and there are pretty much several studies/articles being sent every day.
Posted by: Peter Dove | August 17, 2016 at 10:53 PM
I am very very hopeful about the positive benefits of replenishing the micro biome. On this article, I am still reading, trying to parse out the mechanism behind the benefits. I see the chart of the families of bacteria and wonder which ones overlap autism symptoms, etc.
One of my questions is: do probiotics or replenishing the micro biome show as much benefit in a person with a leaky gut, as a person with a sealed, healthy intestinal lining? It could explain why an antibiotic could show a temporary neuroprotective response, if the person had a leaky gut. Maybe not even good probiotics need to be floating around the body uninvited and maybe in an uninvited form.
I know that good bacteria will contribute to healing the gut, but maybe non-probiotic involved steps need to be started first for better more easily discernible results, before adding probiotics or doing a fecal transplant or eating dirt, or whatever.
i.e. step 1. investigate the ideas about how to stop creating new leaks involving things like going, organic, removing glyphosate, gluten free, lowering sugar, decreasing heavy metal exposures or anything that might activate zonulin or destroy tissue.
step 2. then investigate ideas about maybe plugging the existing leaks with things like bone broth, aloe vera, colostrum, restore water, etc
step 3. only then start probiotics, so that only the beneficial compounds from the probiotics, not the bacteria themselves, make it through the gut lining for the body to make use of.
Posted by: Jenny | July 29, 2016 at 11:26 AM
Thank you, Teresa. Always so much valuable information in your posts.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | July 29, 2016 at 01:24 AM
Saw this similar study in Australian health news a month ago that came from Huston Texas. Summary: Mice with behavioural difficulties similar to those experienced by humans with autism have overcome their symptoms by eating the droppings of healthy mice, a new study suggests.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-22/mice-study-links-gut-bacteria-to-behaviour/7534580.
It seemed the most beneficial strains of gut bacteria they found in the mouse droppings was Lactobacillus Reuteri. I went and bought some at the health shop a couple of weeks ago and started giving it to our adult son with vaccine acquired autism and lots of gut issues and allergies. I started taking it myself for gastritis. We are seeing some improvement but it is early days and I don't know what strain of lactobacillus Reuteri you have to take. Another study
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101102131302.htm
discussed how Lactobacillus Reuteri is usually in breast milk and fermented food and necessary for developing a babies immune system and protecting them against allergies and assisting healthy gums. The one I bought from Blackmore's is a chewable one so I expect it is meant for gums but I later bought one that is in a capsule with another 9 probiotics that is 3 million compared to Blackmores which has 2 million. Lactobacillus Reuteri might be worth a try especially for the young ones with autism and allergies since it seems to be important in breast milk and common in guts of young mammals and birds.
Posted by: Jane | July 28, 2016 at 10:22 AM
Well Reading:
I have been around and around with this too - Once you have a brain injury can you heal it through your gut?
Other research says you can.
Dr. Bernard Rimland was encouraging no gluten or milk protein.
I have been around and around with it - is it a brian injury or is it a food allergy -- maybe it is both - and they are some how connected.
Oh Thanks for more details on the study, by the way.
We all knew this I think; though, every time Teresa brings up the micro biome we get back around to this - what does the injury to the brain, or -- or the immune system allow or don't allow to grow in the gut?.
Brain injuries are notorious for messing up the gut.
If you have SIBO - and that I am pretty sure is the result of a brain injury - the villa or more probably the rhyme of the smooth muscles of the gut all tied in with the vagal nerve and the brain are just not sweeping out the microbes, because the gut squeezes in the wrong order - sporadically. An antibiotic or I heard ginger (?) a more homeopathic herb might help reduce the microbe populations in the small gut.
IT is a mess. but then -- Oh then --- there is the ketogenic diet - the Atkins diet - reducing seizures, even curing seizures, and then there is that specific carbohydrate diet.
Since I mentioned the specific carbohydrate diet; two of the things that my Mother, my son, and my daughter can not tolerate - sets off an over growth of microbes is onions and peppers in their food - the might can tolerate a bit that is well cooked or I think- fermented (still trying to make sure on that one) But never - ever - never raw .
Darn but I raise in the garden tons of peppers -- those pretty orange, red, and yellow and they look so pretty barely stir fried --- but that sets off a gut episode in them all.
Jesus in the Bible several times called for healing through fasting and prayer. Jesus sent the minions out of a man to live in the pigs, Hmmmm.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 27, 2016 at 09:06 PM
It's not this simple, as Singh et al. describe on pages 7438–39. Even the linked item from The Scientist notes that "Anrather and colleagues published a study in March showing that antibiotic-induced changes in gut microbiota affected the outcome of stroke, but the opposite effect—how stroke impacts the gut microbiome—had not been investigated until now."
However, the result of the latter (Benakis et al.) was that inducing gut dysbiosis with amoxicillin was strongly neuroprotective in terms of infarct volume. From Singh et al.:
"The at-first-sight contradictory impact of dysbiosis on final stroke outcome might depend on the differential immune polarization by specific bacterial species. In fact, whereas antibiotic treatment induced T_reg expansion and reduction of Th17 cells (Benakis et al., 2016), poststroke dysbiosis investigated in our study itself favors an opposing pattern with predominant expansion of proinflammatory T-cell subpopulations. Future studies will be required to analyze the contribution of specific microbial species in this highly complex interplay to identify neuroprotective or harmful bacteria in stroke."
The Scientist did well to provide the link, even if they didn't bother to actually look at it, but the term "healthy fecal bacteria" as invoked doesn't really mean anything in particular here.
Posted by: Reading Is Fundamental | July 27, 2016 at 04:33 PM
AutismGoAway: Microbes live in diverse communities; the composition of those communities in our gut can change hourly, daily; our understanding of the complexity of these communities is not even yet at a kindergarten level. True probiotics come from the fermenting of foods, from the microbial community which works its magic on food. A probiotic in a pill is somewhat akin to a pharmaceutical in a pill. It may do some good for some people, or many people, but true health comes from a healthy gut microbiome, from an entire community of mainly but not completely bacteria; there is no pill for that, and, thankfully, no pill can be designed for that. Feeding it with fermentable fiber from fruits and vegetables, from resistant starch (from cooked and then cooled potatoes, for example), from grains, for those who tolerate them, enhances its health. Many in our modern world have lost the diversity in their gut microbiome, especially our children, who are assaulted by pharma. They need to be replenished. It may sound icky, but our feces are truly part of us, and if allowed to, they feed soil microbes which feed the plants and animals which feed us. The effects of this simple procedure, of fecal transplantation, can be a dramatic improvement in a short time. The only concern I have is that the FDA will want to standardize something which can't and shouldn't be standardized. A healthy gut microbiome is key to the health of every human, animal, and insect on Earth. Microbes are our friends, our allies. They are invisible but everywhere.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | July 27, 2016 at 09:23 AM
I am finding these posts very insightful. Hiwever, why does healing have to involve fecal transplants? Why cannot probiotics be used? Can they not develop better probiotics?
Posted by: AutismGoAway | July 27, 2016 at 07:08 AM
Benedetta: “Perhaps God is in the micro world and not up in some big blue sky.” What an amazing insight! I think you’re on to something. Microbes have been around eons longer than plants and animals, and co-evolved with them, or perhaps better to say, facilitated the evolution of plants and animals. Just as ancient cyanobacteria joined forces with proto-plants, becoming chloroplasts and enabling photosynthesis and the spread of plants on land, once free-living bacteria became the mitochondria which power our cells. I think it would be a big mistake to say that our microbiome is not in charge of our health and well-being. The gut microbiome is in continuous communication with our brain. It is the center of our immune system. Who knows what else it controls. We must be nice to it. Feed it fermentable fiber. Don’t give it industrial junk. We already know enough to be certain that fecal transplants have enormous potential in healing. Thanks to Teresa for continually keeping us aware of, and informed about, this revolutionary idea.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | July 26, 2016 at 02:23 PM
---And we did wonder when I was in school - back in the 70s; what it would be like if we could eliminate every last - microbe in the body.
Well, now we are getting an answer, and it is not good.
Perhaps; God is in the micro world and not up in some big blue sky.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 26, 2016 at 07:31 AM
So are you thinking Teresa that a stroke might even be prevented in the first place; if the right gut microbes was in place to begin with?
By a vaccine's very nature it sets you up for a stroke.
I don't think that you have a vaccine meant to sledge hammer kill, a whole kingdom, phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and not just species -- it is such rope a dope, which comes first the egg or the chicken - it gets my brain tied into twisted knots--- and not have strokes.
What in the name of heaven is these bunch of Congressmen, federal agencies become so intertwined with drug companies that they have allowed vaccines combined - together - and giving boosters every time we turn around. It is not like they have not known. I have a text book written back in 1977 that cautions about vaccines that have to be given more than once. .
.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 26, 2016 at 07:27 AM