Low Serum Saturated Fatty Acid Levels Positively Associate with Microbiota Diversity and Metabolic Pathways in Parkinson's Disease Patients

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease is the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease worldwide. Gut microbiome dysbiosis can precede the onset of Parkinson’s disease symptoms by 20 years. The ketogenic diet has shown beneficial impacts as an intervention in the treatment and modulation of the microbiome in Parkinson’s disease. While the ketogenic diet improves Parkinson’s disease symptoms, it increases the serum levels of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The current literature indicates conflicting results with the increase in intake and serum levels of fatty acids and the gut microbiome in Parkinson’s disease. We analyzed the data of 197 Parkinson’s disease patients and 103 healthy controls to unveil associations between serum levels of saturated, mono-unsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids and the microbiome. Our results indicate that saturated fatty acids have a weak but statistically significant positive relationship with the Shannon diversity of the gut microbiome in Parkinson’s disease subjects. Mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fatty acids were not significantly associated with the microbiome diversity. Additionally, we identified low saturated fatty acids associated with the Akkermansia, Bifidobacterium, Faecalibacterium, and Haemophilus genera, with implications in Parkinson’s disease progression and gut dysbiosis. Our analysis also shows low saturated fatty acid positively associates with metabolic pathways such as menaquinol and L-methionine, both having been highlighted as beneficial for Parkinson’s disease. Together, our study indicates that low levels of serum saturated fatty acids are associated with specific genus and pathway changes known to have a positive effect on individuals with Parkinson’s disease.