Patients with Haemorrhagic brain disorders have very distinct and specific gut microbiomes with larger levels of gram-negative bacteria; this has implication for diet and resolving infections quickly.
A brain haemorrhage is a type of stroke; these may be minor or much more severe but the haemorrhage is always cause by an artery in the brain bursting.
A brain haemorrhage has other names such as an intracranial haemorrhage or intracerebral haemorrhage or cerebral haemorrhage and is actual not rare. They can happen at any age and represent 13% of all strokes.
Causes of brain haemorrhages
Blood vessel wall weaknesses can be present at birth and never diagnosed until something happens. More usually, the haemorrhages are a result of head trauma, high blood pressure or aneurysm (the weakening in a blood vessel wall as it swells).
For example, babies can develop excessive bleeding usually caused by vitamin K deficiency.
Now, according to the University of Chicago Medicine (1), we may need to add a very different cause – patients with haemorrhagic brain disease have very distinct gut microbiomes.
Gut microbiomes in cavernous angioma
Cavernous angiomas are quite common – they are linked to strokes, seizures and serious neurological complications. Importantly, they can be inherited or simply sporadic.
Having conducted studies on mice, where they found that cells that lined the blood vessels to the brain reacted to specific gut bacteria, the researchers turned their attentions to humans.
Stool samples were collected from more than 120 patients – they could have had genetic or sporadic CAs. The microbiomes of the CA patients, whatever the cause, had higher amounts of gram-negative bacteria and lowered amounts of gram-positive.
Dr. Issam Awad, the Professor of Neurosurgery at Chicago Medicine and senior study author said that regardless of location, whether or not they had a genetic mutation and even the number of lesions present had near identical microbiomes.
The implications for treatment are huge. Any foods in the diet that disrupt a healthy microbiome could exacerbate the risk. Preservatives such as emulsifiers in processed food would disrupt the microbiome. Infections caused by gram-negative bacteria – such as UTIs and prostatitis – need to be treated straight away or a stroke may come next.
Then the issue could come down to probiotics and prebiotics. Lactic Acid Bacteria would be highly useful; as would a diet (the Rainbow Diet) that contains foods boosts their numbers.
Go to: Foods that boost good gut bacteria
Go to: Lactic Acid Bacteria
Reference
