Gut microbiota and motoric-cognitive frailty in hospitalized older persons

In older people, many systems spontaneously change without diseases. Because of the ageing process, the gut microbiota undergoes a reduced species richness, altered balance between species, with an increased interindividual variability. The result is the reduced resilience in the presence of diseases and medications. These changes are more evident in older persons with neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive-motoric frailty.

A relationship between liver alteration, gut microbiota and the presence of viruses and gram-bacteria is conceivable. They determine the acceleration of neurodegenerative diseases with cognitive and motoric frailty. Hospitalization represents one of the stressors for the gut microbiota, producing dysbiosis and increasing the representation of pathobionts. The gut microbiota alterations during hospitalization may be associated with negative clinical outcomes. This phenomenon together with liver dysfunction could produce an acceleration of the trajectory of cognitive-motoric frailty towards disability and mortality. The observation that predisability is associated of both losses of cognition and motoric performance, has allowed introducing a new syndrome, the motoric-cognitive risk syndrome, which is a condition of increased risk of dementia and mobility-disability.

The interaction between liver and gut microbiota may accelerate the neurodegenerative diseases and represents a promising marker of prognostic trajectories in older patients.