In a new study from the University of Copenhagen, researchers found people with heart attacks or heart failure may have imbalanced gut bacteria.
The human gut contains trillions of bacteria, collectively called the gut microbiome, which may have positive and negative effects on human health.
When in balance they function as an inner chemistry factory producing numerous compounds that promote good health.
However, an unhealthy lifestyle—poor diet, smoking, lack of physical activity or disease—can disrupt the balance, leading the microbiome to instead produce compounds that may trigger multiple non-communicable chronic disorders in people at high genetic risk, including myocardial infarction, angina or heart failure.
In the study, the team tested 1,241 middle-aged people from Denmark, France and Germany including healthy individuals, individuals with obesity and type 2 diabetes but lacking a diagnosis of heart disease, and patients with either heart attacks or heart failure.
The investigators quantified about 700 different bacterial species and estimated their functions in the gut microbiome and compared these findings to more than 1,000 compounds circulating in blood with many of these compounds originating from the inner gut chemistry factory.
They found that about half of these gut bacteria and blood compounds were modified by drug treatment and not directly related to heart disease or the early disease stages like diabetes or obesity occurring prior to diagnosis of heart disease.
Among the remaining half, about 75 percent of the disturbances of the gut microbiome occurred in the early disease stages of overweight and type 2 diabetes, many years before patients noticed any symptoms of heart disease.
However, the early microbiome changes persisted in patients with heart disease who in addition showed specific heart disease related alterations in the composition and function of the gut microbiome.
Both at the early dysmetabolic stage and at the later stages of diagnosed heart disease, the diseased microbiome was characterized by a loss of bacterial cells and bacterial competencies.
In addition, the patients showed a shift towards fewer types of bacteria known to produce health-promoting compounds like short-chain fatty acids and more bacteria types producing unhealthy compounds from the metabolism of certain dietary amino acids, choline and L-carnitine.
Analyses of the blood compounds mirrored the imbalance of the gut microbiome.
The findings demonstrated how the imbalanced gut microbiome may play a role in the development of heart disease.
The team says an imbalanced gut microbiome at various stages of heart disease development can be partly restored by eating a more plant-based and energy-controlled diet, avoidance of smoking and compliance with daily exercise.
If you care about gut health, please read studies about common high blood pressure drugs that may lead to a gut disease, and findings of four ancient herbs that may benefit your gut and metabolism.
For more information about gut health, please see recent studies about a big cause of leaky gut, fatty liver disease, and results showing that fermented-food diet can reduce inflammation, improve gut health.
The study is published in the journal Nature Medicine and was conducted by Professor Oluf Pedersen et al.
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