A recent study from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard found a link between the use of antibiotics by middle-aged women and cognitive decline later in life.
Previous research has shown that there is a connection between gut microbiome health and mental health—communication between the gut and the central nervous system has been labeled the gut-brain axis.
Some studies have shown an apparent link between problems in the gut and mental diseases, such as depression and schizophrenia.
Prior research has also shown that antibiotic use can lead to serious disruptions in the microbiome. This is not surprising, since the microbiome is made up partly of bacteria.
In this study, researchers found a link between antibiotic use by women during middle age and a larger than normal degree of cognitive decline.
To learn more about the possible impacts of antibiotics used by middle-aged women, the researchers pulled data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, an ongoing project that involves collecting health data from female nurses over multiple years.
The team focused on middle-aged female nurses (mean of 54.7 years).
They analyzed data from 15,129 female nurses describing antibiotics use and the results of cognitive scores collected several years later, comparing those who took antibiotics over different duration periods with those who did not.
The researchers found that the nurses who had taken antibiotics for at least two months scored lower on the cognitive tests (taken seven years later) than the nurses who had taken antibiotics for a shorter period of time, or not at all.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about how the Mediterranean diet could protect your brain health, and Vitamin B supplements could help reduce dementia risk.
For more information on brain health, please see recent studies about Vitamin D deficiency linked to higher dementia risk, and these antioxidants could help reduce dementia risk.
The study was published in PLOS ONE and conducted by Raaj S. Mehta et al.
Copyright © 2022 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
