
P. gingivalis in Alzheimer's disease brains - Ankaios
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau3333
======
graeme
>Transient bacteremia of P. gingivalis can occur during common activities such
as brushing, flossing, and chewing, as well as during dental procedures (19),
resulting in documented translocation to a variety of tissues including
coronary arteries (20), placenta (21), and liver (22). A recent study found
that 100% of patients with cardiovascular disease had P. gingivalis arterial
colonization

That’s extremely interesting. 100% of patients with heart disease.

I’ve heard flossing may help prevent alzheimers, due to fighting gum disease.
This article talks about translocation. Once bacteria has made it into the
body, is it too late for gums to have any effect? Or is it more like a total
bacterial load: if the gums are continuing to infect the body, the other parts
of the body must fight harder to keep the invading bacteria at bay?

Edit: of course, we should know how many patients of a similar age without
heart disease had p. Gingivalis in their arteries

~~~
coldtea
> _I’ve heard flossing may help prevent alzheimers, due to fighting gum
> disease._

I've heard flossing is only peddled by floss companies, with no real studies
to recommend it.

Not sure the jury is out:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/health-36962667](https://www.bbc.com/news/health-36962667)

~~~
autokad
I think its a hard case to sell that there is no benefit to oral health by
flossing. I know for myself, food gets stuck in places that not even brushing
and using mouth wash can dislodge. I dont want to be one of those 'i am a
corner case and you are wrong people', but I find it doubtful this is unique
to me

~~~
dtech
I asked my dentist, he told me current consensus leans towards brushing +
toothpicks being the best, but flossing + brushing is better than just
brushing.

~~~
Retric
Flossing also takes decent technique to be effective. Simply inserting and
removing floss while better than nothing is only so effective.

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KSS42
Here’s some related material:

"It turns out that [amyloid-beta proteins] form [plaques] because they're
trying to help us. They're trying to fight an infection," said Robert Moir, an
assistant professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and the
Massachusetts General Hospital.

"The Alzheimer's disease dementia that comes after years of this battle, are
something like collateral damage from their actions. But it's not that it's
intrinsically bad what they're doing. It's just that if you keep doing it for
long enough the amyloid that is generated in this battle starts to become a
problem in itself."

If this theory, which Moir outlines in a review article published in the
December issue of the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, proves true, it could
mean researchers' current strategies to combat the disease — fighting the
plaques — is misguided.

[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/dec-8-2018-why-are-users-
tak...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/dec-8-2018-why-are-users-taking-
fentanyl-making-stuff-with-moon-dust-an-app-to-detect-anemia-and-
more-1.4935099/have-researchers-been-wrong-about-alzheimer-s-a-new-theory-
challenges-the-old-story-1.4935121)

The antimicrobial protection hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease:

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155252601...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155252601833228X)

~~~
doctorpangloss
The emphasis on the plaques comes from the fact that Alzheimer’s is diagnosed
by the presence of these plaques, while dementia is a symptom/presentation.

I guess it comes down to whether you believe that an infection
disproportionately affects old people and causes dementia. It probably
doesn’t, not for any good biological reason, but because it doesn’t sound like
any progress has been made on the biomechanics of dementia.

Laypeople obviously don’t care about the plaques. They want the dementia to go
away. You can make a mouse model that has a brain infection, and then
potentially a model where that infection shows plaques, and then a molecule
that gets rid of the infection. But it’s really hard to tell (in real life,
not in science speak) if a mouse has dementia. That’s the limitation.

We’re so incredibly far away from drug interventions for dementia.

~~~
viscanti
> I guess it comes down to whether you believe that an infection
> disproportionately affects old people and causes dementia.

What they're saying is that after many years of fighting the infection
Alzheimer's starts to develop. Certainly people who are older have the
potential to have more years of infection. This seems plausible.

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ncmncm
Money quote:

"The Kgp inhibitor COR271, which has oral bioavailability and significant CNS
penetration, administered orally twice a day significantly reduced bacterial
load in the brain compared to the positive control infection arm and in
comparison to baseline levels at 5 weeks."

~~~
masonic
Any idea of cost for future therapeutic doses?

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reasonattlm
And yet the risk increase for dementia for people with periodontitis is not
large at 6% in a recent sizable study.

[https://www.healthinaging.org/blog/periodontitis-may-
raise-t...](https://www.healthinaging.org/blog/periodontitis-may-raise-the-
risk-for-developing-dementia/)

~~~
dlrush
Good data point. However, this suggests that the barriers between oral
infection -> vascular infection -> brain infection are somewhat effective.

------
kbaker
This may also help explain why neurosurgeons who operate on Alzheimer's
patients are more likely to develop Alzheimer's themselves:

[https://alzgerm.org/news/reports-indicate-brain-surgeons-
ris...](https://alzgerm.org/news/reports-indicate-brain-surgeons-risk-
transmitted-alzheimers-disease/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20170305](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20170305)

------
pc2g4d
So... my memory has gotten a LOT worse in the last few years. I've started
making more spelling mistakes, and just thinking less clearly in general.
There is alzheimers disease in my ancestry as well, and I'm worried I'm on
track for dementia, even just as a 30-something. It happens to correlate
pretty well to the time since I stopped using Listerine regularly, FWIW.

I see things about fighting alzheimers with vigorous exercise, consumption of
mushrooms, etc. From this I would think that using Listerine would be
beneficial for eliminating a potential source of P. gingivalis infection.

Anybody else facing this predicament? What is your approach?

~~~
ozzyman700
Why not try using listerine again? you could do some spelling tests to try and
benchmark yourself.

~~~
Udik
Discovering that listerine improves spelling would be definitely something :)
Hey, if you publish serious research on it, whatever the outcome, you're in
for an IgNobel, no doubt.

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wrycoder
From the Discussion section of TFA: “In addition, there is one other species
of Porphyromonas that is known to produce gingipains, Porphyromonas gulae
(61). P. gulae is a natural inhabitant of the oral cavity of companion animals
such as dogs, and a recent study demonstrated that dogs can transmit P. gulae
to the oral cavity of their owners (62). Research is underway to determine
whether P. gulae may be contributing to the gingipain load in AD brains.”

------
ncmncm
Since 1999 there have been reports of Herpes-family viral infections
associated with Alzheimer's, with publication only recently enabled. What is
up with that work?

~~~
jayalpha
Not sure I understand your question.

1\. New results? Check Medline!

2\. What the problem is? I vaguely remember that this might have been on
hackernews recently: [https://www.statnews.com/2018/10/29/alzheimers-research-
outs...](https://www.statnews.com/2018/10/29/alzheimers-research-outsider-
bucked-prevailing-theory/)

------
starchild_3001
For an overarching theory, see the book: Microbial Burden: A Major Cause Of
Aging And Age-Related Disease by by Michael Lustgarten.

Also related: What if we found out that blood microbiome is the most
significant marker of heart disease? E.g.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5328378/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5328378/)

------
snarfy
I recall reading Slackware's Patrick Volkerding's health problems were traced
back to his sonic toothbrush. [1]

tl;dr The sonic toothbrush was aerosolizing the bacteria in his mouth which
was inhaled while brushing his teeth.

[1] -
[https://science.slashdot.org/story/04/11/16/1846207/patrick-...](https://science.slashdot.org/story/04/11/16/1846207/patrick-
volkerding-battles-mystery-illness)

~~~
jwilk
Archived copy of the original article:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20041118015127if_/http://slackwa...](https://web.archive.org/web/20041118015127if_/http://slackware.osuosl.org:80/slackware-
current/PAT-NEEDS-YOUR-HELP.txt)

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eternauta3k
Sounds like what Dale Bredesen is saying.

[https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/dale-
bredesen](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/dale-bredesen)

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johnnycab
Related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18987015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18987015)

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wazoox
How does this compound with the Taiwanese study on relation between herpes
viruses and Alzheimer?

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hirundo
Ergo, floss.

