High-fiber diet may delay clinical onset of Huntington’s disease, study finds

Professor Anthony Hannan de Florey, head of the Epigenetics and Neural Plasticity Group and co-lead of research for the Mental Health Mission, said the results of a study published in Brain behavior and immunity indicate that dietary fiber could delay the onset of Huntington’s symptoms.

There is currently no cure or effective treatment for this devastating disease, which can strike in the prime of life and is always fatal.

“Huntington disease is a debilitating inherited progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by a defective gene,” said Professor Hannan, lead author of the paper.

“Patients experience worsening motor, cognitive and psychiatric symptoms over the years. The disease also causes gastrointestinal symptoms, and in recent years we have discovered a disruption in the composition of bacterial populations in the gut.”

Professor Hannan, Dr Carolina Gubert and their team set out to find out if dietary interventions could reduce Huntington’s symptoms.

“Working with a preclinical model, we tested the impact of high, medium and no levels of dietary fiber consumption,” Professor Hannan said.

“What we found is very exciting. For the first time, we showed that high fiber intake improved not only gastrointestinal function, but also cognition and behavior.”

Lead study author Dr Carolina Gubert, a researcher at Florey, said the study showed that dietary fiber could beneficially modulate Huntington’s disease, and that this could happen via the microbiome axis. -gut-brain.

“The gut microbiome of our mouse model of Huntington’s disease, carrying the human disease gene mutation, responded differently to high fiber intake compared to non-Huntington mice. This is consistent with our previous finding that the Gut microbiome is altered in Huntington’s disease.”

Professor Hannan said the findings could also have implications for other brain disorders with dysfunction of the gut-brain axis, such as depression and dementia, and further research will determine whether this is the case.

The Australian Dietary Guidelines are an excellent evidence-based guide to food consumption for optimal health, he said.

The Florey team now plans to work with Australian and international colleagues to establish a clinical trial to test whether such a high-fiber diet is beneficial in humans.

Provided by the Florey Institute for Neuroscience and Mental Health