By Dailymail.com Reporter and Mia De Graaf Health Editor For Dailymail.com
Published: 15:12 GMT, 4 January 2019 | Updated: 17:07 GMT, 4 January 2019
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A fungi typically found in the gut could be a key factor in Alzheimer's disease, scientists say.
Candida albicans is pathogenic yeast that lives in the human gastrointestinal tracts.
But researchers found that when it was injected into a mouse's bloodstream, it was able to cross the brain's protective barrier and triggered inflammation, that eventually caused memory loss.
Looking closer, they saw the rodent's brains had developed tissue structures similar to those seen in people with Alzheimer's.
The study is the latest to suggest gut bacteria plays a crucial role in neurodegenerative disease, and offers a clear target for researchers to examine while they work towards a treatment or even a cure.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas found, yet again, that gut bacteria plays a role in brain diseases - but this time they found a clear target for researchers to examine
Professor Dr David Corry at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, explained: 'An increasing number of clinical observations by us and other groups indicates that fungi are becoming a more common cause of upper airway allergic diseases such as asthma, as well as other conditions such as sepsis, a potentially life-threatening disease caused by the body's response to an infection.'
He added fungal infections causing airway allergic diseases and sepsis have been
