His team developed and tested in mice a compound, also abundant in some vinegars and olive oils, that blocks gut bacteria’s TMAO production. The experiment showed that medicines targeting such microbes could improve their host’s health.
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The work highlights one of many possible links between the gut and cardiovascular disease. Certain gut microbes may make some individuals more sensitive to risk factors such as high LDL cholesterol, Hazen said. Research has suggested other tantalizing connections, Reid noted, such as a link between the obesity-associated molecule leptin, which is known to affect the heart, and the use of probiotic lactobacilli—beneficial microbes—to reduce it and improve heart function, as his research has indicated in animals.
“These concepts are gaining traction but haven’t been translated in the clinic,” Reid said.
Although intake of specific probiotics can influence gut microbiome composition, Hazen believes preventing or treating cardiovascular disease will not be as straightforward as simply using probiotics to make complex communities of gut microbes match a “healthy” profile. “We have to get to the function of bugs,” Hazen said, “and how that is leading to a change in host physiology.”
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Still, doctors are slowly coming around to appreciate probiotics’ potential to treat illness or complement current therapies, Reid said. But given the microbiome’s vast potential impact on disease, he added, not nearly enough research is being funded, especially in humans.