In a new study, researchers found that using artificial intelligence to analyze the bacteria in a person’s gut microbiome shows promise as a new screening method for heart disease.
The research was conducted by a team at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio.
Recent studies have found a link between gut microbiota, the microorganisms in human digestive tracts, and heart disease, which is the leading cause of mortality worldwide.
Gut microbiota is highly variable between individuals, and differences in gut microbial compositions between people with and without heart disease have been reported.
In the study, the team wanted to test whether it is possible to screen for heart disease in humans using artificial intelligence screening of stool samples.
They used data from the American Gut Project to analyze the microbial composition of stool samples with state-of-the-art machine learning modeling.
Nearly 1,000 samples were analyzed, and approximately half of the samples were from people with CVD.
The model was able to identify different clusters of gut bacteria that could potentially help identify individuals with existing heart disease and without heart disease.
Among the bacteria identified:
Bacteroides, Subdoligranulum, Clostridium, Megasphaera, Eubacterium, Veillonella, Acidaminococcus, and Listeria were more abundant in the heart disease group.
Faecalibacterium, Ruminococcus, Proteus, Lachnospira, Brevundimonas, Alistipes, and Neisseria were more abundant in the non-heart disease group.
The findings suggest that fecal microbiota composition may serve as a convenient diagnostic screening method for heart disease.
The team says it is possible that one day, maybe without even assessing detailed heart function, clinicians could analyze the gut microbiome of patients’ stool samples with an artificial machine learning method to screen patients for heart and vascular diseases.
One author of the study is Bina Joe, Ph.D., FAHA.
The study was presented at the virtual American Heart Association’s Hypertension 2020 Scientific Sessions and now is published in Hypertension.
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