Microflora and arteries
Intestinal bacteria affect the development of cardiovascular diseases
Yulia Vorobyova, Vesti
Researchers continue to discover new roles of intestinal bacteria in the human body. Recall that their community is called microbiota. Some microorganisms in its composition help fight the flu, others provoke autoimmune diseases, others control our genes, and others do not allow people to recover from cancer.
Now, scientists have proved for the first time that bacteria living in the gastrointestinal tract are also associated with the development of cardiovascular diseases. In particular, the so-called beneficial bacteria improve the condition of the arteries, and with a lack of such microorganisms, on the contrary, the risk of developing various disorders increases, the team from the University of Nottingham and King's College London reports in a press release: New link between gut microbiome and artery hardening discovered.
According to experts, it very often happens that a patient does not smoke, has a normal cholesterol level and blood pressure, but at the same time he still develops cardiovascular diseases. Doctors have been looking for the cause for a long time, and a violation in the composition of the microbiota is just the risk factor that they simply did not pay attention to before.
In fact, intestinal bacteria are directly related to an indicator known as arterial stiffness. Increased arterial stiffness is observed when the walls of blood vessels lose their elasticity – for example, due to increased loads, with atherosclerosis, with frequent internal inflammatory processes and due to natural mechanical wear. This condition is associated with the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke.
"A significant part of serious cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks, is not explained by traditional risk factors such as obesity and smoking, especially in young people, but arterial stiffness is associated with risk in these groups," explains lead author Ana Valdes.
To find out how the gut microbiota affects arterial stiffness, the researchers turned to the project participants TwinsUK is a database that stores all kinds of information about twins. Doctors and geneticists turn to this data to compare the state of people's health and how certain factors affect it.
In the course of the work, the authors analyzed data from 617 pairs of middle-aged twins (women). They were interested in the arterial stiffness index, which is indicated by the carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity.
In addition, experts compared the composition of the intestinal microbiota of volunteers. They also took into account other factors: blood pressure levels and metabolic processes.
As a result, absolutely all participants had a connection between the diversity of bacteria and the condition of the arteries. The higher the first indicator was, the lower the second one was and vice versa.
Scientists have also identified a number of specific bacteria, the presence of which reduces the risk of arterial stiffness. And it turned out that the same microorganisms reduce the risk of obesity
Perhaps one of the most significant conclusions of this work is that by changing the composition of the gut microbiota, you can reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. Special diets, probiotics and medications will help in this, experts believe.
"The search for ways to increase the diversity of intestinal microbes is of great interest in the case of diabetes and obesity. Our results show that dietary changes to increase the diversity of beneficial bacteria can also be used to reduce the risk of heart disease," says co–author Cristina Menni.
In particular, scientists mention a diet high in fiber – it promotes the growth of diversity of intestinal bacteria and their populations. However, additional research will be required to develop tips on changing the composition of the microbiota specifically to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
It is also important that now doctors have the missing risk factor and will be able to predict the possibility of developing such disorders more accurately.
A scientific article based on the results of this work was published in the European Heart Journal (Menni et al., Gut microbial diversity is associated with lower arterial stiffness in women).
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