This article was originally published on Medical News Today
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Metabolic health measures can be used to assess the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
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Chinese researchers have also shown that metabolic health can be characterized by the presence and abundance of certain microbes in the gut microbiome.
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Age is also associated with certain microbiome characteristics and people whose microbiome is associated with younger parameters were less likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease.
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These results were verified in Chinese, European and American cohorts.
Scientists have characterized how age and metabolism can present themselves in the microbiome.
Chinese researchers developed a microbial signature linked to age and metabolism, based on the results of surveys of a cohort of more than 10,000 Chinese, and verified it in a cohort of more than 9,000 Chinese.
They then examined the impacts of these signatures on the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
The researchers published their results in Natural medicine.
The gut microbiome is a population of bacteria, viruses and other microbes, playing a role in digestion, but also in other processes, including nerve signaling, immune response and hormones.
Yoshua Quinones, MD, a board-certified internist with medical offices in Manhattan, New York, who was not involved in this research, told Medical news today:
“The microbiome affects cardiovascular disease risk by producing metabolites like TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide) and SCFAs (short-chain fatty acids), modulating inflammation and immune responses, influencing lipid and metabolism metabolism. glucose, regulating blood pressure and modifying cholesterol absorption (…) As we age, changes in our immune system, diet, lifestyle and gut function alter the gut microbiome. This leads to fewer different types of bacteria and changes in how they function, affecting our overall health and risk of disease.
What metabolic parameters are linked to aging?
First, researchers examined a cohort of 10,207 Chinese participants, collecting information on 21 metabolic parameters to classify individuals into five “metabolic multimorbidity groups.” These were:
They then examined the impact of belonging to one of these groups on the overall risk of cardiovascular disease over an average follow-up of 11.1 years.
They found that people in the obesity and high blood sugar groups were 75% and 117% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, respectively, than those in the healthy group.
Clusters MC1, MC2, and MC3 were all related to “healthy” settings, while MC4 and MC5 were associated with “unhealthy” settings. These results were then validated on a cohort of 9,061 individuals, with a 10-year follow-up.
Certain bacteria can influence aging
The researchers then examined the gut microbiome of 4,491 participants from the original cohort and sequenced the genomes of the microbes found there, to identify the presence and abundance of particular species.
They found that the microbiomes of people assigned to the metabolic multimorbidity groups had some overlapping characteristics.
They also characterized the species present in the microbiome of younger and older people. They then compared the presence of 55 age-related microbial species as a function of age to develop a measure of gut microbial age, which they then validated using existing cross-sectional data from Israel , the Netherlands, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The microbiomes of younger people were associated with lower levels of Bacteroides species and older people had higher levels of Prévotelle And Enterobacteria species.
Can we harness the microbiome to prevent heart disease?
The study authors also highlighted microbial variation between individuals in different countries and said this could be an area of further research.
Further analysis showed that younger microbial age was associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
The authors proposed that this could mean that the microbiome could be a target for the prevention of cardiovascular disease in older adults who are not in good metabolic health.
Catherine Rall, RDN, a registered dietitian based in Denver, Colorado, and certified nutritionist at Happy V, who was not involved in the research, said: Medical news today that:
“The results of this study show a strong correlation between poor gut microbiome health and an increased risk of morbidity-related diseases, such as cardiovascular problems. This suggests that a healthy gut microbiome may help limit the impacts of aging on the body, becoming even more important in helping people stay healthy as they age.
“While there is some merit to the idea that microbiome health can be effectively correlated with a person’s biological age, our gut microbiomes are also highly altered by prebiotic and probiotic supplementation and potentially by measures even more extreme ones like fecal transplantation,” she noted.
“I wouldn’t say this represents our ability to reverse aging, but it can certainly help improve health outcomes for people as they age,” Rall said.
The findings of this research are supported by evidence from other studies, which have shown that gut dysbiosis – an imbalance of bacterial populations in the gut – is associated with a range of inflammatory diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease. intestinal (IBD), rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus, but also cardiovascular diseases.
There are also links between these conditions, including IBD, and cardiovascular disease.
The authors of this study looked at heart attacks, strokes, and deaths related to cardiovascular events, but other studies have linked gut dysbiosis to a range of cardiovascular risk factors, including atherosclerosis. , hypertension, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, obesity and disease type. 2 diabetes.
However, the central question remains: does dysbiosis cause these problems or do these conditions cause dysbiosis?
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