Antibiotics ‘can help slow Alzheimer’s progression through changes to gut’

Taking antibiotics can have an effect on a person's gut biology that could serve to slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

This is according to a new study from the University of Chicago, which has indicated that long-term treatment with broad spectrum antibiotics decreased levels of amyloid plaques – a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease – and activated inflammatory microglial cells in the brains of mice.

A number of other significant changes in the gut microbiome were also associated with antibiotic treatment, suggesting the composition and diversity of bacteria in the gut can influence the regulation of immune system activity in a way that affects Alzheimer's disease.

These findings do not indicate that long-term courses of antibiotics should be explored as a treatment option, but does show how two fields of medicine that were previously thought to be separate may be linked in previously unknown ways.

The study's senior author Dr Sangram Sisodia, professor of neurosciences at the University of Chicago, said: "This is an area that people who work with neurodegenerative diseases are going to be increasingly interested in, because it could have an influence down the road on treatments."