Researchers identify gut microbiome bacteria tied to stroke risk
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Researchers in China have identified specific gut microbiome bacteria that may influence risk for several subtypes of ischemic stroke, according to research published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
“The complicated relationship between the gut microbiome and the onset of ischemic stroke through the gut-brain axis has generated a storm of controversy. So far, a growing of circumstantial evidence has logically supported this speculation. For one thing, gut dysbiosis directly results in some conditions that are risk factors for stroke. The list includes hypertension, diabetes, aging, vascular dysfunction, dyslipidemia and obesity,” Changjiang Meng, MD, of the Clinical Research Center and Health Management Center at the Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, in Changsha, China, and colleagues wrote. “Disentangling this causality is of great clinical importance, which could help bridge these gaps from traditional epidemiological studies. A better approach to overcome these limitations is Mendelian randomization.”
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Meng and colleagues conducted the present two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis to assess the relationship between genetic variants associated with bacterial traits found in the gut microbiome and ischemic stroke subtypes, including cardioembolic, small vessel and large artery stroke.
The researchers used the international consortium MiBioGen — developed to study the impact of human genetics on gut microbiome — and data were extracted from a large-scale genome-wide meta-analysis of 18,340 individuals from 24 population-based cohorts.
Among the 194 bacterial traits assessed, those in the Intestinimonas group showed negative associations with large artery stroke (OR = 0.7; 95% CI, 0.61-0.98) and small vessel stroke (OR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.73-0.98).
In addition, bacterial traits found in the Lachnospiraceae NK4A136 group were genetically associated with decreased risk for small vessel stroke (OR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.66-0.99) and cardioembolic stroke (OR = 0.75; 95% CI, 0.6-0.94), according to the study.
“This Mendelian randomization study supports the causal effects of the gut microbiome on ischemic stroke,” the researchers wrote. “Several types of intestinal bacterial traits were detected to potentially increase or decrease the risk of incident ischemic stroke. These may have prospects for the prevention of different ischemic stroke subtypes. In addition, the clinical benefits of the gut microbiome should be further evaluated in future large-scale people research.”
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