The Gut-brain axis: the role of gut microbiome in Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease is one of the most severe and wide-spread neurodegenerative diseases in the world. WHO estimates that more than 47 million people (8.1% of women and 5.4% of men over the age of 65) are currently living with dementia. Despite the long history and wide impact in humans of AD, the disease remains in mist. Until now, we cannot determine which factors cause AD and how to find a cure. There is several hypotheses about the pathogenesis of AD, of which cholinergic hypothesis and Nucleic acid oxidation hypothesis are two of the most insightful ones. Besides, increasing evidence suggests the intimidate role of gut microbiome in the development and mitigation of Alzheimer's disease. The bidirectional link between the gut and the brain is note-worthy, offering a potential insight to future investigation on AD.  To fully understand the role of gut microbiome in process of Alzheimer’s disease, this review illustrates pathogeneses of AD and the procedure of several important pathogenetic factors like high blood pressure, diabetes and aging should be discussed. Further application of gut microbiome can be a drug target for AD: scientists extract a chemical called sodium oligomannate for balancing gut microbiome to treat mild to moderate AD.