Heart disease remains the number one cause of death around the world, and one of the biggest reasons is a slow and silent process called atherosclerosis.
This happens when fatty deposits, known as plaques, slowly build up inside the arteries. Over time, these plaques harden and narrow the arteries, making it harder for blood to flow.
If a plaque suddenly breaks, it can block blood flow completely, causing a heart attack or stroke. Even with modern medicine, atherosclerosis is still a major threat to global health.
One of the main causes of plaque buildup is a condition called dyslipidemia. This simply means there is too much harmful fat in the blood, especially LDL cholesterol, which people often call “bad cholesterol.” About half of all adults have this problem.
Doctors usually treat it with medications that lower cholesterol and other blood fats. These drugs help slow down plaque growth and reduce the chances of heart attacks. However, even the best drugs rarely remove existing plaques. They mostly help prevent new ones from forming.
Now, two new studies have found something surprising. A simple mineral called manganese may help lower blood fats even more and could even help remove plaque that has already formed.
This is surprising because manganese is usually known as a trace mineral that the body uses only in tiny amounts to help enzymes do their job. It is found naturally in foods like nuts, beans, rice, and leafy vegetables. Most people never think about it, and doctors rarely talk about it beyond basic nutrition.
But in these new studies, scientists discovered that manganese might play a much bigger role in heart health than anyone expected. They fed manganese to mice that had high cholesterol and plaque buildup.
The mice that received extra manganese showed a big drop in their blood fat levels, and the plaques in their arteries began to clear out. The results were much stronger than the researchers had imagined.
To understand why this happens, it helps to know how the body moves fats around. Cholesterol and triglycerides cannot travel alone in the blood because they do not mix with water. So the body packs them into small carriers called lipoproteins.
These carriers act like tiny delivery trucks that transport fats through the bloodstream. Inside the cells, a structure called the COPII complex helps package these fats before they enter the blood. You can think of COPII as a shipping system that loads fat into transport vehicles.
The researchers discovered that manganese binds to this COPII complex and changes how it works. When manganese levels rise, the COPII system becomes more active in a very specific way that lowers blood fat levels.
Interestingly, this effect is strongest at a certain “sweet spot.” Too little manganese does nothing, but too much is not helpful either. At the ideal level, though, manganese helps reduce harmful fats in the blood and may even help the body remove plaques already stuck to artery walls.
Dr. Xiao Wang, one of the lead researchers, said the team was excited by what the data showed. They believe manganese might be used in new treatments to prevent or even reverse heart disease.
This could be a major step forward because current treatments focus on managing risk, not repairing damage. The idea of actually clearing harmful plaques could change how doctors treat heart disease in the future.
However, the researchers also warn that this work is still in the early stages. The studies were done in mice, not humans. Many treatments that work well in animals do not always work the same way in people.
And while manganese is essential in small amounts, too much can be toxic, especially to the brain. Because of this, people should not start taking extra manganese supplements on their own. More research is needed to find safe doses and understand exactly how this method works in human cells.
Scientists now plan to study this process more deeply in human tissue and, eventually, in clinical trials.
If future research confirms these results, doctors may one day have a new type of treatment that not only lowers cholesterol but also helps repair years of damage inside the arteries. This could greatly reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes and improve the lives of millions of people.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease, and coconut sugar could help reduce artery stiffness.
For more information about health, please see recent studies that Vitamin D deficiency can increase heart disease risk, and results showing vitamin B6 linked to lower death risk in heart disease.
Copyright © 2025 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
