Heart disease is still the leading cause of death worldwide. One of the main problems that leads to it is a condition called atherosclerosis, where fatty plaques build up in the arteries. These plaques can block blood flow or rupture, causing heart attacks and strokes.
A major cause of atherosclerosis is dyslipidemia—having too many harmful fats, like bad cholesterol, in the blood. This condition affects about half of all adults.
Doctors usually treat dyslipidemia with medications that lower blood fat levels. These drugs can help stop plaques from getting worse, but they don’t completely remove them. However, two new studies suggest a surprising new approach that might not only lower blood fats even more but also reverse plaque buildup.
The key player in this new approach is something unexpected: manganese.
Manganese is a mineral our bodies need in very small amounts. It usually plays a supporting role in helping enzymes do their job. But in these recent studies, scientists discovered that manganese may have a much bigger role to play—possibly helping to clear fat from the bloodstream and even remove harmful plaques from artery walls.
Researchers tested this idea in mice and found that giving them more manganese—even through their food—caused a big drop in blood fats and helped clear out the plaques in their arteries. This effect could potentially be a game-changer in the treatment of heart disease.
But how does it work?
To understand this, you need to know how fats travel in the blood. Fats like cholesterol and triglycerides are too large to float freely, so the body packs them into bundles called lipoproteins. These are complex particles that carry fats through the bloodstream.
The formation of lipoproteins depends on a process in cells involving a structure called the COPII complex. Think of this complex as a packaging and shipping system for fats. It helps cells load lipids into carriers and send them into the bloodstream.
Manganese appears to directly affect this process. It binds to the COPII complex and changes how it works. When manganese levels rise, it increases the activity of this complex in a very specific way. Interestingly, this effect follows a bell-shaped curve—meaning that there’s an ideal amount of manganese that helps lower blood fats the most.
By influencing how fats are packaged and shipped out of cells, manganese changes how much fat ends up in the blood. This helps reduce fat buildup in the arteries and may even help remove existing plaques.
One of the study’s lead researchers, Dr. Xiao Wang, said the team was excited by what they found. They believe manganese could be used in new treatments to prevent or even reverse heart disease. However, they also emphasized that more research is needed to figure out how to safely and effectively use manganese in people.
These findings are promising and bring a fresh perspective to heart disease treatment. The idea that a common mineral could play a major role in reversing artery damage is both surprising and exciting.
Current treatments for heart disease mainly focus on managing risk—controlling blood sugar, lowering cholesterol, or reducing blood pressure. But this manganese-based approach seems to go further by actually clearing out harmful plaques, which could help reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes.
That said, the research is still in the early stages. The results come from studies in mice, not humans. It’s important to be cautious because things that work in animals don’t always work the same way in people. Also, while manganese is essential in small amounts, too much of it can be toxic, especially to the brain.
The next steps will be to study how this works in human cells and eventually in clinical trials. Researchers will need to find safe doses and ways to target the effects of manganese without causing harm.
In conclusion, this discovery offers a new direction in the fight against cardiovascular disease. If future studies confirm these findings in humans, we could see the development of new, more effective therapies that not only lower blood fats but also repair the damage caused by years of buildup in the arteries.
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.
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