The Effects of Microbiological Spectrum Changes to Improve Cognitive Health in Aging Population

With an increasing age of the population, the incidence of age-related problems, such as memory deficits or negative changes in mood, is on the rise. On this account, an increased emphasis has been placed on identifying natural ways to reduce the occurrence of such problems. One of the proposed methods to achieve this is to modify the composition of gut bacteria and their by-products, which has shown a surprising, yet highly promising potential to benefit the brain function and blood composition. In the recent years, gut bacteria have been of great interest to many medical professionals from various disciplines. It is postulated that they might exert some influence on memory and emotions, but there is a lack of evidence to confirm these hypotheses. Our study would like to address this issue and examine the beneficial effects of probiotics into more depth. Probiotics are dietary supplements in the form of bacteria, which are often artificially added e.g. into some dairy products. This is done to promote gut health and to improve the quality of gut microflora. The subject selection and assessment are summarised as follows: Participants will be pre-selected electronically and given an electronic memory test. Further selection of eligible subjects based on their preliminary results will be followed by the first personal appointment, where each participant will undergo memory and mood-focused psychological testing and testing for gut bacteria composition. One week after the initial appointment, participants will be asked to bring in a stool and urine sample, their blood will be collected and their fitness and dietary habits assessed. Each participant will also be given an electronic watch, which will monitor their physical activity, and supplements in the pill form, which either contain specially cultivated human gut bacteria (i.e. probiotics) or placebo. Identical tests and blood, urine and stool collection will be repeated three months after administering the first pill. The participants will receive another set of pills, which will contain the probiotics if the participant has initially received placebo and vice versa. After three more months, participants will be subjected to the same tests as in the previous two instants. To test for lasting effects of treatment, participants will be tested again after 3 more months and the project will reach its termination. Using the above-mentioned methods, the aim of this project is to provide sufficient evidence of the beneficial effects of the new probiotics on memory, mood and the biochemical components contained in the blood, stool and urine in elderly population.