Nutrients May Play a Complex Role in Influencing Microbiota Composition and Function in Parkinson’s Disease Patients

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons, leading to symptoms such as tremors and gastrointestinal dysfunction. Previous studies have shown reduced gut microbial diversity and imbalances in Parkinson’s disease patients including increases in inflammatory microbes and decreases in commensals. However, the impact of dietary macronutrients and micronutrients on gut microbiota composition in Parkinson’s disease patients remains unclear. By analyzing published microbiota data containing nutrient intakes of Parkinson’s disease patients and non-Parkinson’s disease controls, we aimed to identify nutrients that are associated with gut microbiota composition in Parkinson’s disease patients. We observed correlations between certain nutrients and changes in beta diversity among Parkinson’s disease patients. We then segregated the Parkinson’s disease and control data based on consumption of each of these identified nutrients and performed taxonomic analyses and functional pathways analysis. These analyses compared the upper and lower nutrient consumption groups for Parkinson’s disease and control populations. The core microbiome and indicator species analyses revealed that microbial composition is more responsive to nutrient intake in the control group than in Parkinson’s disease patients, with a greater number of core ASVs and indicator taxa identified in control groups. Differential abundance analysis further showed that high nutrient intake generally led to the upregulation of more ASVs, with some exceptions, such as coffee in PD patients and NSP in non-PD controls, where downregulation was more prominent. The functional pathway analysis identified that nutrients have a greater metabolic effect on Parkinson’s disease patients than control. Ultimately, our survey into how nutrients drive changes in microbial diversity in Parkinson’s disease patients may help guide future research into nutrient intake catered to the prevention and management of Parkinson’s disease.