Gut Microbiome Could Have Effect on Cognition in Older Cancer Survivors

According to reporting from Healio, a recent study has found a relationship in older survivors of cancer between the composition of the gut microbiome and their cognitive capacity. Another term for this connection is the gut-brain axis. Undergraduate research assistant Jayden A. Haggler claims that

“Gut-brain is a newly studied axis that allows us to look at the gut and consider it almost as a second brain.”

Haggler and the other members of the research team were aiming to get a better grasp on distinctive microbiome signatures in cancer survivors and how these signatures might have an effect on cognitive function, which would potentially have significant implications for the process of aging in the survivors.

The research involved data from 150 individuals using data pulled from the Microbiome in aging gut and brain (MiaGB) Consortium study. This is a study focused on the microbiome health in elderly people with either normal cognition or in those diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s. Forty-nine of them had a diagnosis of cancer.

The researchers conducted a genome analysis on each person and collected stool samples as well. The participants were then split into four separate groups:

• Non-cancer with no cognitive impairment (64 people)
• Non-cancer, cognitive impairments present (37 people)
• Cancer with no cognitive impairments (29 people)
• Cancer, cognitive impairments present (20 people)

The team found that there were substantial correlations between the metabolic pathways and the gut microbiome and its effect on cognition in people who had survived cancer. They reported that in people with cognitive impairment, concentrations of blautia bacteria were higher than in the other participants.

The researchers theorized that certain species may be down or up regulated along with cognitive status. They acknowledged limitations of the study, such as a small sample size and limited research on the impacts that cancer treatments could have had. Future paths of study might involve age-matched analysis to gain a better understanding of the origins of cognitive impairments observed in the study subjects. 

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Last modified: October 24, 2024