Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Jul 3;11(7):1884.
doi: 10.3390/biomedicines11071884.

Life Experience Matters: Enrichment and Stress Can Influence the Likelihood of Developing Alzheimer's Disease via Gut Microbiome

Sarah E Torraville  1 , Cassandra M Flynn  1 , Tori L Kendall  1 , Qi Yuan  1
Affiliations
Review

Life Experience Matters: Enrichment and Stress Can Influence the Likelihood of Developing Alzheimer's Disease via Gut Microbiome

Sarah E Torraville et al. Biomedicines. .

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease, characterized by the presence of β-amyloid (Aβ) plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) formed from abnormally phosphorylated tau proteins (ptau). To date, there is no cure for AD. Earlier therapeutic efforts have focused on the clinical stages of AD. Despite paramount efforts and costs, pharmaceutical interventions including antibody therapies targeting Aβ have largely failed. This highlights the need to alternate treatment strategies and a shift of focus to early pre-clinical stages. Approximately 25-40% of AD cases can be attributed to environmental factors including chronic stress. Gut dysbiosis has been associated with stress and the pathogenesis of AD and can increase both Aβ and NFTs in animal models of the disease. Both stress and enrichment have been shown to alter AD progression and gut health. Targeting stress-induced gut dysbiosis through probiotic supplementation could provide a promising intervention to delay disease progression. In this review, we discuss the effects of stress, enrichment, and gut dysbiosis in AD models and the promising evidence from probiotic intervention studies.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; chronic mild stress; enrichment; environmental factors; gut dysbiosis; gut microbiome; probiotics; stress.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effects of stress and probiotic manipulation on the gut microbiota and health.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Alzheimer’s Association What Is Alzheimer’s Disease? Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia. 2023. [(accessed on 2 March 2023)]. Available online: https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-alzheimers.
    1. Alzheimer Society of Canada What Is Alzheimer’s disease? Alzheimer Society of Canada. 2023. [(accessed on 2 March 2023)]. Available online: https://alzheimer.ca/en/about-dementia/what-alzheimers-disease.
    1. Weller J., Budson A. Current understanding of Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis and treatment. F1000 Res. 2018;7:1161. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.14506.1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dickson D.W. The Pathogenesis of Senile Plaques. J. Neuropathol. Exp. Neurol. 1997;56:321–339. doi: 10.1097/00005072-199704000-00001. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Selkoe D.J. Alzheimer’s disease: Genes, Proteins, and Therapy. Physiol. Rev. 2001;81:741–766. doi: 10.1152/physrev.2001.81.2.741. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources