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gut health and heart disease: study shows bacteria impacts cholesterol and cardiovascular health

a new study finds a connection between heart health and the gut, paving the way for future therapies to reduce risk of heart disease.

by angelica bottaro
published apr 04, 2024
read time 4 minute read
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read time 4 minute read
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by nailing down how these bacteria work toward lowering heart disease risk, researchers broke open a world of potential regarding future therapies and prevention techniques. getty images
they say that you should always listen to your gut and your heart, and while that common cliché is typically reserved for making big decisions in life, the two are more connected than previously thought. researchers from the broad institute of mit and harvard, alongside some bright minds from massachusetts general hospital, released a new study that looked into cardiovascular disease and the plausible prominent role gut health may play in having a good or bad ticker.
they found that specific microbes, or gut bacteria, seek out cholesterol to metabolize it so that it doesn’t find its way toward veins and arteries to set up camp, blocking blood flow that leads to heart disease.

gut bacteria can be your best friend or worst enemy

the gut is home to over 100 trillion bacteria, known as the microbiome. some of them are good, and some of them are bad. the good ones ensure that you absorb nutrients from your food, stimulate the immune system to fight the good fight against disease and illness, and break down toxic food compounds.
that said, when they’re outnumbered due to changes in the gut, their productivity is compromised. if you have too many harmful microbes working away at your system, it can lead to various health issues, such as inflammatory bowel disease (ibd), irritable bowel syndrome (ibs), obesity, and diabetes.

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now, the latest research is painting an even clearer picture of why the microbiome is essential to overall health, this time highlighting the heart and cardiovascular system. the study looked at 1,400 participants and their metabolites and microbial genomes as part of the framingham heart study, a decades-long research effort designed to nail down the risk factors that play into the decline of cardiovascular health.
medical experts found that one bacteria species, oscillibacter, plays for the good guys. the bacteria stroll through your gut, absorbing cholesterol to metabolize it from the stomach. when they complete their task, that extra cholesterol is robbed of the harmful chance to find a new place within the body to call home, lowering the risk of cholesterol build-up and heart disease.

practical health interventions using the microbiome

fixing the imbalance of gut bacteria to help improve health parameters isn’t new. probiotics, for example, have been a long-standing addition to health plans for many people to help keep levels of good bacteria up where they need to be.
typically, conditions that affect the gastrointestinal tract and metabolic diseases have been the star of the microbiome research show because it’s hard to ignore the connection between what goes on in the gut and overall gut health.
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however, the microbiome has also been utilized to improve health outcomes by encouraging diversity among gut species. for example, studies have found that people who develop cancer have better responses to chemotherapies, radiation, and immunotherapies due to improved gut diversity.
the new research is shedding even more light on how much further the gut microbiome can go in terms of the development of targeted therapies because of another discovery—they know the mechanism behind oscillibacter’s decomposition powers. when you understand how something works, you can use it to your advantage.
until the research was released, medical experts weren’t entirely sure of the effects gut health had on heart health. they had to build on previous studies that found a connection between specific health parameters, such as blood sugar levels and triglycerides, to the microbiome after eating. this made it difficult to use these microbes in any meaningful capacity to address the risk factors of heart disease and, in the future, potential therapies.
by nailing down how these bacteria work toward lowering heart disease risk, they broke open a world of potential regarding future therapies and prevention techniques. they did so by collecting stool samples and cultivating the group of bacteria to see precisely how they metabolized cholesterol. when that pathway was revealed, it revealed an exciting journey into the world of the gut-heart connection.
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learning about the gut to improve future health

the clinical research surrounding gut health is vast, but much of it fails to identify how microbes interact with one another to improve or maintain homeostasis. the new study aimed to change perspectives by looking at only one gene or microbe at a time, paving the way for new discoveries that aid in improving the gut and overall levels of optimal health.
one of the co-authors of the study, chenhao li, told earth.com, “hopefully, stepping back by focusing on one particular bug or gene first, we’ll get a systematic understanding of gut ecology and come up with better therapeutic strategies, like targeting one or a few bugs.”
he continued, “because of the large number of genes of unknown function in the gut microbiome, there are gaps in our ability to predict metabolic functions. our work highlights the possibility that additional sterol metabolism pathways may be modified by gut microbes. there are potentially a lot of new discoveries to be made that will bring us closer to a mechanistic understanding of how microbes interact with the host.”
while research is ongoing into the gut microbiome and its significant role in human health, this discovery puts medical researchers on a unique and exciting path toward understanding the complexities of the human microbiome and how they can harness that information to improve the lives of those at risk of or living with chronic disease.
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angelica bottaro
angelica bottaro

angelica bottaro is the lead editor at healthing.ca, and has been content writing for over a decade, specializing in all things health. her goal as a health journalist is to bring awareness and information to people that they can use as an additional tool toward their own optimal health.

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