A new study from Cedars-Sinai has found that bacteria in the gut may play a powerful role in causing or reducing blood vessel inflammation linked to Kawasaki disease, a serious illness in young children.
While the study was done in mice, the findings raise the exciting possibility that targeting gut bacteria could one day help prevent or treat this disease in humans.
Kawasaki disease is rare but dangerous. It affects about 18 to 25 out of every 100,000 children under the age of five in the U.S. It’s the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children around the world.
The disease often starts with a high fever and causes inflammation of the blood vessels, a condition known as vasculitis.
If not treated, Kawasaki disease can lead to serious heart problems, including swelling in the arteries that supply blood to the heart (coronary artery aneurysms). About 1 in 4 children with untreated Kawasaki disease develop these complications.
Currently, the main treatment is a type of therapy called intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), which is given through a vein. It helps reduce inflammation in most children, but about 20% of patients don’t respond to it. This means doctors urgently need other treatment options — and this new research may help point the way.
Dr. Magali Noval Rivas, a senior researcher at Cedars-Sinai, led the study. Her team focused on the gut microbiota — the trillions of bacteria that live in our digestive system. These bacteria help digest food, protect against harmful germs, and may also play a role in regulating the immune system.
Previous studies had shown that children with Kawasaki disease had different gut bacteria compared to healthy children, but scientists didn’t know whether those differences were a cause or effect of the disease.
To find out, the Cedars-Sinai researchers used a special mouse model that mimics Kawasaki disease in humans. They changed the gut bacteria in these mice in several ways. First, they used treatments to reduce the number of gut bacteria.
When they did this, the mice had less blood vessel inflammation. Then, they added bacteria that are known to cause inflammation, and the inflammation got worse. Finally, they introduced “good” bacteria or substances produced by those bacteria — and this helped protect the mice from inflammation.
Dr. Moshe Arditi, a senior author of the study, explained that this shows how gut bacteria may influence inflammation not just in the digestive system, but also in the blood vessels — including those that are affected in Kawasaki disease. This suggests that adjusting gut bacteria, either by removing harmful ones or boosting helpful ones, could be a new way to treat or even prevent the disease.
Still, the researchers caution that more work needs to be done before this can be used in real-life treatment for children. They plan to do more studies to test whether these findings apply to humans and to make sure any new treatments based on gut bacteria would be safe and effective.
In summary, this study shines a light on an unexpected connection between the gut and heart health in children. It shows that gut bacteria may help control the inflammation that causes Kawasaki disease.
If future research confirms these findings in people, doctors may someday use gut-based treatments — like special probiotics or bacteria-related therapies — to protect children from this potentially life-threatening illness.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that vitamin K helps cut heart disease risk by a third, and a year of exercise reversed worrisome heart failure.
For more health information, please see recent studies about supplements that could help prevent heart disease, stroke, and results showing this food ingredient may strongly increase heart disease death risk.
The research findings can be found in Circulation Research.
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