Microbiota and pressure
Scientists have told about the unusual effect of intermittent fasting
American scientists have established in experiments on rats that when animals are fed every other day, the composition of bacteria in the intestine changes and blood pressure decreases. The authors believe that their discovery will help to develop new methods of combating hypertension based on the adjustment of eating style.
The results of the study are published in the journal Circulation Research (Shi et al., Restructuring the Gut Microbiota by Intermittent Fasting Lowers Blood Pressure).
Almost half of the adult population in Western countries suffers from hypertension. Constant high blood pressure increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Recently, there have been more and more studies, the results of which suggest that an increase in blood pressure may be associated with dysbiosis or a violation of the vital activity of intestinal bacteria.
Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston decided to find out whether it is possible to regulate blood pressure with the help of the gut microbiota.
"Previous studies in our laboratory have shown that the composition of the gut microbiota in rats with spontaneous hypertension prone to stroke differs from the microbiota of animals with normal blood pressure," the college's press release (How the microbiota regulates blood pressure) quotes the head of the study, associate professor of anesthesiology David Durgan.
Previously, the authors proved that the transplantation of intestinal microbiota from an animal with hypertension to an animal with normal blood pressure leads to the development of high blood pressure in the recipient.
"This result indicates that intestinal dysbiosis is not a consequence of hypertension, but its cause," the scientist says.
From previous studies, scientists also knew that fasting affects the gut microbiota and heart health. However, how gut bacteria are related to blood pressure was not clear.
For the experiment, the authors divided laboratory rats into two groups: starving and control. The former were fed every other day, and the latter had unlimited access to food, and in both groups there were both models of rats with spontaneous hypertension, prone to stroke (SHRSP), and healthy animals.
Nine weeks after the start of the experiment, the researchers, as expected, noticed that the SHRSP rats from the control group had higher blood pressure than normal mice from the same group. Interestingly, in the fasting group, the blood pressure in the SHRSP rats decreased significantly.
The scientists decided to investigate the role of the microbiota in lowering blood pressure, which they observed in starving SHRSP rats. To do this, they transplanted the microbiota of SHRSP rats, which either starved or ate without restrictions, to sterile animals that do not have their own microbiota.
After some time, the results showed that sterile rats who received the microbiota of SHRSP rats from the control group had higher blood pressure than those who were transplanted microbiota from normal control rats. At the same time, in those animals that received microbes from starving SHRSP rats, the pressure was significantly lower.
"These results demonstrated that the changes in the microbiota caused by fasting were sufficient to mediate a decrease in blood pressure," Durgan notes.
A comparative analysis of blood metabolites revealed elevated levels of bile acids in the plasma of starving animals – potential mediators of blood pressure regulation. For the first time, researchers have proven that intestinal dysbiosis contributes to hypertension by altering the transmission of bile acid signals.
The authors conclude that intermittent fasting, which changes the composition of the intestinal microbiota, can be an effective way to combat hypertension.
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