Human gut bacteria "eat" drugs

Researchers at the University of California and the University of California, San Francisco, have found that a bacterium called fecal enterococci can effectively break down L-dopa, a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease, preventing it from reaching the brain, harvard university said in a press releaseaccording to the design, left-handed doba should be taken and should reach the brain and convert to dopamine to relieve symptoms of Parkinson's diseaseBut the drug actually reaches the brain at a very low rate, and the efficacy varies greatly from patient to patient, sometimes with serious side effectsTo prevent the drug from being metabolized before it reaches the brain, existing Parkinson's therapy has added another drug, carbidopa, to help suppress the metabolism, increasing the proportion of levodopa that reaches the brainresearchers, writing in the journal Science, say the metabolism of ledoba by gut bacteria may have been a factor in the phenomenon, and their new study has identified the type of gut bacteriaresearchers have found through genetic analysis that there are several gut bacteria that encode enzymes that combine levodopa, converting it into dopamine before the drug reaches the brain, but only fecal coliforms can completely metabolize levodopa each timeThe mechanism at which Kabidoba works is to prevent the enzyme encoded by the fecal enterococci from metabolizing the l-doba, but does not kill the fecal enterococci itselfstudy also found that another bacterium called slow Egotbacteria metabolizes the converted dopamine, creating another by-product called meta-tyramine, a compound that researchers believe may be one of the causes of side effectsthe new findings mean that in treating Parkinson's disease, not only the body's own metabolism of drugs, but also the effects of gut bacteriaThe study also explains why the same drugs have a largedifference in efficacy in different people, and understanding these mechanisms may provide ideas for improving existing drugs.