Aging and gut brain axis

Increased life expectancy in the 20th century is leading to a demographic shift resulting in population aging. It is a major medicosocial burden requiring the need for the diagnosis and the management of age related disorders. A large body of literature provide compelling evidence that a correlation exist between aging/ age-related chronic diseases with chronic inflammatory state.1–3 Review of literature in the geriateric research shows two important hypotheses associated with age-related inflammation: inflammaging4,5 and molecular inflammation.6–10 Gut microbes could unlock the secret to healthy aging. Various researchers reported the bidirectional crosstalk between the brain and the gut with reciprocal influence on their functions and dysfunctions. Therefore, research is going on in the field of potential diagnostic and therapeutic role of the microbiota in improving the altered gut-brain axis in elderly patients and the use of specific stool bacteria as biomarkers for disease progression.