Gut bacteria has been linked to the world’s most common form of heart disease, researchers revealed Thursday.
More than a dozen species of microbes, that live in the intestines, have been tied to coronary artery disease. Some 18 million Americans and 250 million people around the world have the condition which is caused by blockages in the arteries that may lead to a heart or stroke. Coronary artery disease kills nearly 20 million people globally each year.
The new findings build on years of research that has found a link between heart and gut health. The gut also influences the health of the brain, immune system and metabolism, studies have found.
Previous research suggested that gut bacteria contributed to the progression of coronary artery disease, but did not look at the specific bacteria involved.
“We’ve gone beyond identifying ‘which bacteria live there’ to uncovering what they actually do in the heart-gut connection,” Dr. Han-Na Kim, a genomicist at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea, said in a statement.
The new study compared the fecal matter of 14 people with the disease to 28 healthy participants, and found 15 bacteria species were associated with coronary artery disease.
Of those 15 species, seven were “significantly more abundant” in people with coronary artery disease. Eight were “significantly depleted” compared those without the disease.
‘Jekyll and Hyde’ bacteria
Further analysis of the microbes suggested that typically “friendly” gut bacteria could become an unfriendly influence on a person’s health, and function in different ways, depending on whether or not the microbes were in a healthy or unhealthy gut.
Past studies have found reduced levels of some species of spore-forming Lachnospiraceae connected to coronary artery disease, for example. But the new study found higher levels of other types of the bacteria in people with coronary artery disease – suggesting Lachnospiraceae’s presence could be a positive or negative in different patients.
Kim said Lachnospiraceae “may be the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the gut.”
“The big unanswered question now is which strains are the healers, and which are the troublemakers,” she said.
Coronary artery disease was the leading cause of cardiovascular disease deaths in the U.S. in 2022, resulting in 371,506 deaths, according to the American Heart Association.
