The effects of coffee consumption and antibiotic use on gut microbial community structure of Parkinson’s disease patients

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a complex brain disorder involving a multitude of contributing factors that range from environmental to genetic. Interestingly, it has been found that the development and progression of PD are associated with alterations in gut microbiota. However, the factors contributing to altered gut microbiota remain largely unexplored. As such, the first objective of our study was to determine whether a difference exists between the gut microbial community structure of PD patients and healthy controls. Subsequently, we aimed to analyze the relationship between the consumption of coffee and antibiotics and the observed alteration in the gut microbial communities in PD patients. We found that PD patients possess significantly different microbial community structures when compared to controls. Furthermore, while some previous studies have suggested antibiotics to be a potential trigger for alterations in gut microbiota characteristic of PD, we found that antibiotic consumption does not induce significant alterations to the gut microbial community structure. Similarly, coffee consumption, regardless of frequency, did not result in significant differences in gut microbial composition. While we were able to identify that PD patients possessed significantly different gut microbial community structure when compared to controls, antibiotic and coffee consumption were not found to significantly impact gut microbial community structure, which suggested that other factors were likely at play in inducing dysbiosis observed in PD patients. An understanding of gut microbiota composition in PD patients and the identification of the effects of antibiotics and coffee consumption on gut microbial community structure could allow for the development of potential diagnostic and treatment methods which could be critical in combating PD.