04/25/2026
Parkinson's Disease, a brain disorder that affects movement, Under the Microscope
Consider A Gut Genome Connection
Study Conducted by Menozzi and team: Nature Medicine 2026.
Who they studied:
- 271 people who already had Parkinson’s
- 150 healthy people
- 43 people who had a special gene change called GBA1, raising
the chance of getting Parkinson’s is up to 30 times greater.
The Aim:
To understand why some people get Parkinson’s disease, while others don’t. So they studied the DNA and gut bacteria of different people
What they found
-- In people who already had Parkinson’s, 176 types of bacteria
differed from those in healthy people.
-- In the healthy group, 142 of those 176 bacteria were already
present
Concllusion
The gut might start changing long before someone shows symptoms.
Why this matters
-- The team created a special 16‑bacteria score called
PDMS‑16. This could become an early-warning test.
-- It uses just 16 types of bacteria to guess whether someone
might be starting to move toward Parkinson’s. even if they
feel totally fine.
The study suggests that your gut bacteria may show signs of Parkinson’s years before symptoms appear.
