Instead of statins
Antibacterial agents help against atherosclerosis
Kirill Stasevich, Science and Life (nkj.ru )
It has long been known that intestinal bacteria not only help digest food, but also affect the immune system, the brain, metabolism, and in general, they do not affect anything. At the same time, the effect can be different, and if we talk, for example, about metabolism, then some bacteria help keep body weight under control, while others, on the contrary, contribute to obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis.
Probably, if you adjust the composition of the intestinal microflora, you can get rid of atherosclerosis with obesity or at least weaken them. But this must be done so as not to damage the beneficial bacteria. Researchers from the Scripps Institute managed to find such antibacterial agents that inhibit the growth of atherosclerotic microbes in the digestive system without harming beneficial symbionts.
These antibacterial substances belong to cyclic peptides; some of these peptides synthesize our own cells to fight infections. The authors of the work created a whole set of cyclic peptides, which were tested on microbes of the intestinal microflora of mammals. Mice with genetic modifications prone to atherosclerosis were taken for the experiment. They were fed food with a high content of fats and fast-digesting carbohydrates (something that roughly corresponds to the so-called Western diet with a lot of fried, salty, fatty, etc.). As a result, the mice had increased cholesterol levels in the blood, they began to have cholesterol plaques, and in the intestines the advantage was given to those types of microbes, which stimulate atherosclerotic changes in metabolism. Microflora samples were taken from mice, treated with antibacterial peptides and looked at what happened to certain bacteria.
As a result, it was possible to select two peptides that suppressed the growth of harmful bacteria and returned the microflora to a healthy state. These peptides were then given to mice with an already increased risk of atherosclerosis – and in mice, after two weeks, the cholesterol level in the blood dropped by 36%, and after ten weeks, the size of atherosclerotic plaques in the arteries decreased by 40%.
Obesity and atherosclerosis develop due to improper nutrition, but the effect of improper nutrition is largely mediated by intestinal microbes: an unhealthy diet gives an advantage to those bacteria that have a bad effect on the absorption of nutrients in the intestine and on metabolism. And if you suppress the growth of such bacteria, then the metabolism will improve, at least in part, and the likelihood of full-scale atherosclerosis will decrease, despite a not very healthy diet. Perhaps it will be possible to do this just with the help of such antibacterial peptides – however, you still need to check whether they have any dangerous side effects that manifest themselves for a long time.
Article by Chen et al. Directed remodeling of the mouse gut microbiome inhibits the development of atherosclerosis published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
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