Overview
Studies indicate that the intestinal microbiota could have an implication in Alzheimer's disease; recently, a positive relationship has been established between levels of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and cerebral amyloidosis and a negative relationship between the production of the chain fatty acid cuts butyrate by the intestinal microbiota and cerebral amyloidosis. Currently there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer's, but studies indicate that a healthy diet such as the Mediterranean diet and physical exercise delay the symptoms of this disease. For all these reasons, it is postulated that introducing changes in the intestinal microbiota through diet may be a new treatment or serve as an adjuvant treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
Description
The study consists of three main stages, a first part in which healthy subjects and patients will be characterized. With all the variables obtained, network analyzes and predictive analyzes are carried out in order to see the interaction between variables and determine predictive variables of Alzheimer's disease that could be subject to modification by the diet. In a second stage, the personalized supplement will be designed based on the characteristics of Alzheimer's patients and there is no patient participation. In a third stage, a randomized, parallel nutritional intervention trial will be carried out where the supplement designed "ad hoc" will be compared in the population of Alzheimer's patients against a nutritional supplement commonly used in Alzheimer's patients.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- to be able to give written consent signed jointly by the patient's legal representative following the rules of the clinical research ethics committee
- minimum educational level (reading and writing)
- proficiency of the language of the tests applied; adequate visual and auditory acuity, in the opinion of the researcher, to enable him/her to carry out the tests in the study (compensatory glasses and hearing aids are allowed
- compliance with the diagnostic criteria of prodromal Alzheimer's Disease according to the criteria of the Institute on Aging- Alzheimer's Association [NIA-AA]: Global Deterioration Scale GDSâ„ 2-3
- Availability of a person ('caregiver') who has frequent and sufficient contact with the subject, so that he/she can provide precise information on the subject's day-to-day life, and attend the visits that are required by the study
Exclusion Criteria:
- Suffer or have suffered from neurological (epilepsy, sleep disorders, etc.), psychiatric or any other type of pathology (sensory, hepatic, infectious, etc.) which, in the investigator's opinion, may affect their current cognition and functionality
- Metabolic/endocrine disorders: Type I diabetes, the rest will not be excluded
- Chronic or sporadic use of antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals or anti-parasitic agents and chronic use of proton pump inhibitors (omeprazole, etc.). The chronic medication that these patients take due to hypertension, diabetes, etc., should be recorded in the database but should not be a criterion for exclusion
- Suffer from some type of pathology related to the gastrointestinal system or have undergone gastrointestinal surgery (ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, bariatric surgery)
- Pre-menopause or perimenopause
Control patients: recruited among the relatives and companions of the patients and/or in
primary care centers in the region of Murcia. The inclusion criteria for the control group
will be the same as for the Alzheimer's group except for the requirements regarding
cognitive impairment. The intention is for the control group to be similar in age and sex
distribution to the Alzheimer's group.