Gut microbiome changes can signal Parkinson’s disease risk years before symptoms
A person can seem healthy and still carry subtle biological signs of trouble long before the first tremor or slowed movement appears. In Parkinson’s disease, one of those early signals may be living in the gut. A new study led by researchers at University College London found that people with Parkinson’s have a distinct pattern of gut microbes, and that similar patterns also appear in some people who do not yet have the disease, including those with a known genetic risk. That raises a striking possibility: changes in the microbiome could help flag elevated Parkinson’s risk before symptoms begin. Parkinson’s is already one of the world’s fastest-growing neurological disorders. By the time doctors can diagnose it through motor symptoms, more than half of the brain’s dopamine-producing neurons have typically already been lost. That makes early detection one of the field’s biggest priorities. Professor Anthony Schapira of the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology said the need is urgent. “Parkinson’s disease is a major cause of disability worldwide, and the fastest growing neurodegenerative disease in terms …
