5 ms·

Gut microbial taxa elevated by dietary sugar disrupt memory function

91 points by AnonymousOne 6y ago

AnonymousOne 6y ago
Abstract: Emerging evidence highlights a critical relationship between gut microbiota and neurocognitive development. Excessive consumption of sugar and other unhealthy dietary factors during early life developmental periods yields changes in the gut microbiome as well as neurocognitive impairments. However, it is unclear whether these two outcomes are functionally connected. Here we explore whether excessive early life consumption of added sugars negatively impacts memory function via the gut microbiome. Rats were given free access to a sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) during the adolescent stage of development. Memory function and anxiety-like behavior were assessed during adulthood and gut bacterial and brain transcriptome analyses were conducted. Taxa-specific microbial enrichment experiments examined the functional relationship between sugar-induced microbiome changes and neurocognitive and brain transcriptome outcomes. Chronic early life sugar consumption impaired adult hippocampal-dependent memory function without affecting body weight or anxiety-like behavior. Adolescent SSB consumption during adolescence also altered the gut microbiome, including elevated abundance of two species in the genus Parabacteroides (P. distasonis and P. johnsonii) that were negatively correlated with hippocampal function. Transferred enrichment of these specific bacterial taxa in adolescent rats impaired hippocampal-dependent memory during adulthood. Hippocampus transcriptome analyses revealed that early life sugar consumption altered gene expression in intracellular kinase and synaptic neurotransmitter signaling pathways, whereas Parabacteroides microbial enrichment altered gene expression in pathways associated with metabolic function, neurodegenerative disease, and dopaminergic signaling. Collectively these results identify a role for microbiota “dysbiosis” in mediating the detrimental effects of early life unhealthy dietary factors on hippocampal-dependent memory function.
- aviraldg 6y ago
  Why was this flagged? It's simply the abstract for the article, useful for people to read (to determine if they're actually interested in reading more) before clicking through.
  - AnonymousOne 6y ago
    Maybe because I'm a new user, I don't know.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
I believe it, inflammatory responses causes so many things we are only now starting to see in the past 15 years, lots of autoimmune diseases that had no cause or correlation to anything seem to be a direct byproduct of a modern Western diet--sugar based. It's crazy but I used to mock the idea of fasting from a biological perspective (an education emphasis on glucose and misc metabolic pathways to create ATP etc...) because it would make me 'hangry' only to realize that a lot of that was just the crashes from a poor sugary American diet. Now, its my to go thing to do when I'm feeling ill or lethargic as it perks me up and after nearly a diet of daily intermittent fasting (10-18 hours) I now understand why so many ancient cultures have it as a critical part of their religious practices. Also, it makes food taste really good as you will savour every bite instead of just stuff your face. Anyhow, it's insane to me that it took this far into the 21st century for modern medicine to see the obvious when it comes to emphasis of the gut biome in the overall health of the body and mind. The next thing will be the emphasis on healthy animal meat and fats in satiation and lower inflammation, as well as the absurdity of drinking other animals milk with all the antibodies, steroids, antibiotics etc... used in conventional Ag. Raw milk is ok, but honestly I wonder what the amount of leaky gut and IB, and possibly Crohn's disease this single thing into our diet has caused? It's worth noting that most of the Human population loses the ability to metabolize milk (via na enzyme called lactase) by the time they reach 12, very few populations still have it: think Nordics. Even Mongolians who have been milking animals for 1000s of years still lack this gene/enzyme which.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Sometime in the last 20 years we simply stopped talking about fiber, and both kinds play a big role in gut biota. It's like we've simply given up on it. Probably most of us aren't getting anywhere near as much pectin in our diets as we used to, let alone vegetables.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    wait I thought fiber vanished in the 1950s due to nutritionist of the day going all in on the 'calory is all that matters' but a lot of people started to talk about fibers in the 2000s (my memory is blurry though)
jacquesm 6y ago
This is well known, Dutch politicians have for the longest time suffered from this particular issue.
tryonenow 6y ago
The abstract is a little concerning, but the good news is that this suggests that the gut biome does have influence on the brain, and perhaps that influence can be reversed or utilized with engineered biomes and/or bacteria. Perhaps the path to transhumanism will start at the gut.
Shank 6y ago
I really think that nature's domain name causes people to misjudge articles like this. Nature is a very very reputable journal, but the domain (nature.com) hosts all of their (albeit still very nice) derivative journals. To the casual observer who doesn't click the link (and just reads the headline on HN), it appears that many articles are Nature articles, when in-fact, they are articles from other journals. This is published in Translational Psychiatry, which is still a reputable journal by all measures, but it appears to be in Nature by domain alone. The difference between Nature and its sub-journals are quite significant, since Nature is reserved for the "cream of the crop." So, to the casual observer, it may appear as a larger breakthrough than it may be. I only point this out because I've definitely had the "ooh, a new article in Nature on HN?" reaction, only to be left wanting more because the article isn't a Nature article.
- heyoni 6y ago
  Good callout. I absolutely had this reaction to it.
- aaron695 6y ago
  > Nature is a very very reputable journal, but the domain (nature.com) hosts all of their (albeit still very nice) derivative journals. If it was reputable Nature would not do this, they deal in deceit if this is true, deliberately confusing people. I see no reason to trust 'Nature' then, although I'm not even sure what 'Nature' is. Was it 'Nature' who told us who to vote for? Or do they get to hide behind these facades on that as well?
skybrian 6y ago
In rats. Still, it seems worth investigating?

91 points by AnonymousOne 6y ago

Abstract: Emerging evidence highlights a critical relationship between gut microbiota and neurocognitive development. Excessive consumption of sugar and other unhealthy dietary factors during early life developmental periods yields changes in the gut microbiome as well as neurocognitive impairments. However, it is unclear whether these two outcomes are functionally connected. Here we explore whether excessive early life consumption of added sugars negatively impacts memory function via the gut microbiome. Rats were given free access to a sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) during the adolescent stage of development. Memory function and anxiety-like behavior were assessed during adulthood and gut bacterial and brain transcriptome analyses were conducted. Taxa-specific microbial enrichment experiments examined the functional relationship between sugar-induced microbiome changes and neurocognitive and brain transcriptome outcomes. Chronic early life sugar consumption impaired adult hippocampal-dependent memory function without affecting body weight or anxiety-like behavior. Adolescent SSB consumption during adolescence also altered the gut microbiome, including elevated abundance of two species in the genus Parabacteroides (P. distasonis and P. johnsonii) that were negatively correlated with hippocampal function. Transferred enrichment of these specific bacterial taxa in adolescent rats impaired hippocampal-dependent memory during adulthood. Hippocampus transcriptome analyses revealed that early life sugar consumption altered gene expression in intracellular kinase and synaptic neurotransmitter signaling pathways, whereas Parabacteroides microbial enrichment altered gene expression in pathways associated with metabolic function, neurodegenerative disease, and dopaminergic signaling. Collectively these results identify a role for microbiota “dysbiosis” in mediating the detrimental effects of early life unhealthy dietary factors on hippocampal-dependent memory function.

aviraldg 6y ago
Why was this flagged? It's simply the abstract for the article, useful for people to read (to determine if they're actually interested in reading more) before clicking through.
- AnonymousOne 6y ago
  Maybe because I'm a new user, I don't know.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

I believe it, inflammatory responses causes so many things we are only now starting to see in the past 15 years, lots of autoimmune diseases that had no cause or correlation to anything seem to be a direct byproduct of a modern Western diet--sugar based. It's crazy but I used to mock the idea of fasting from a biological perspective (an education emphasis on glucose and misc metabolic pathways to create ATP etc...) because it would make me 'hangry' only to realize that a lot of that was just the crashes from a poor sugary American diet. Now, its my to go thing to do when I'm feeling ill or lethargic as it perks me up and after nearly a diet of daily intermittent fasting (10-18 hours) I now understand why so many ancient cultures have it as a critical part of their religious practices. Also, it makes food taste really good as you will savour every bite instead of just stuff your face. Anyhow, it's insane to me that it took this far into the 21st century for modern medicine to see the obvious when it comes to emphasis of the gut biome in the overall health of the body and mind. The next thing will be the emphasis on healthy animal meat and fats in satiation and lower inflammation, as well as the absurdity of drinking other animals milk with all the antibodies, steroids, antibiotics etc... used in conventional Ag. Raw milk is ok, but honestly I wonder what the amount of leaky gut and IB, and possibly Crohn's disease this single thing into our diet has caused? It's worth noting that most of the Human population loses the ability to metabolize milk (via na enzyme called lactase) by the time they reach 12, very few populations still have it: think Nordics. Even Mongolians who have been milking animals for 1000s of years still lack this gene/enzyme which.

hinkley 6y ago
Sometime in the last 20 years we simply stopped talking about fiber, and both kinds play a big role in gut biota. It's like we've simply given up on it. Probably most of us aren't getting anywhere near as much pectin in our diets as we used to, let alone vegetables.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  wait I thought fiber vanished in the 1950s due to nutritionist of the day going all in on the 'calory is all that matters' but a lot of people started to talk about fibers in the 2000s (my memory is blurry though)

jacquesm 6y ago

This is well known, Dutch politicians have for the longest time suffered from this particular issue.

tryonenow 6y ago

The abstract is a little concerning, but the good news is that this suggests that the gut biome does have influence on the brain, and perhaps that influence can be reversed or utilized with engineered biomes and/or bacteria. Perhaps the path to transhumanism will start at the gut.

Shank 6y ago

I really think that nature's domain name causes people to misjudge articles like this. Nature is a very very reputable journal, but the domain (nature.com) hosts all of their (albeit still very nice) derivative journals. To the casual observer who doesn't click the link (and just reads the headline on HN), it appears that many articles are Nature articles, when in-fact, they are articles from other journals. This is published in Translational Psychiatry, which is still a reputable journal by all measures, but it appears to be in Nature by domain alone. The difference between Nature and its sub-journals are quite significant, since Nature is reserved for the "cream of the crop." So, to the casual observer, it may appear as a larger breakthrough than it may be. I only point this out because I've definitely had the "ooh, a new article in Nature on HN?" reaction, only to be left wanting more because the article isn't a Nature article.

heyoni 6y ago
Good callout. I absolutely had this reaction to it.
aaron695 6y ago
> Nature is a very very reputable journal, but the domain (nature.com) hosts all of their (albeit still very nice) derivative journals. If it was reputable Nature would not do this, they deal in deceit if this is true, deliberately confusing people. I see no reason to trust 'Nature' then, although I'm not even sure what 'Nature' is. Was it 'Nature' who told us who to vote for? Or do they get to hide behind these facades on that as well?

skybrian 6y ago

In rats. Still, it seems worth investigating?