Gut Bacteria May Not Make Enough Hydrogen in Parkinson's Disease

Scientists think that people with Parkinson's disease have gut bacteria that don't make enough of a special gas called hydrogen, which normally helps protect the brain from damage. They're suggesting that adding this hydrogen gas back in might help slow down or treat Parkinson's disease.

The authors propose that impaired production of hydrogen gas by gut microbiota may be a previously unrecognized link between gut dysbiosis and Parkinson disease pathogenesis.

This paper proposes a new theory about Parkinson disease: that problems with gut bacteria (dysbiosis) may reduce the amount of hydrogen gas the gut naturally produces, and this reduction could contribute to Parkinson disease development. The authors suggest that because hydrogen gas has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, supplementing with hydrogen might be a potential therapy for this neurodegenerative disease.

This is a theoretical proposal, not a study with experimental results or human trials. While it identifies an interesting potential mechanism connecting gut health to Parkinson disease, there is currently no evidence from this paper that hydrogen supplementation helps treat or prevent Parkinson disease. Further research would be needed to test whether this theory is correct.

Dysbiosis of the gut flora accompanies Parkinson disease (PD), yet no specific cause–effect link has been identified so far. The gut microbiota produce molecular hydrogen (H2), a ubiquitous molecule recently recognized as a biologically active gas with antioxidant, antiapoptotic, anti-inflammatory…

Read the full abstract on PubMed