Gut Microbes Role in Heart Failure Explored

October 1, 2019 1217 Patients with heart failure who eat fiber-rich diets have a healthier gut microbiome, which is associated with a lower risk of death and heart transplant, according to an abstract presented at European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Heart Failure 2019. The study is part of an emerging body of evidence that suggests that the community of microbes that live in the human gut may play an important role in heart failure. Researchers are still working to tease out the molecular mechanisms by which gut microbes influence heart failure outcomes and how these might be altered by diet or other types of interventions. But the picture that is emerging from these investigations, so far, is that the microbiome “functions like an endocrine organ” generating metabolites that affect human physiology, noted W.H. Wilson Tang, MD, professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, in a recent review he coauthored in Nature Reviews Cardiology. “The ecosystem of the human and microbial interface impacts cardiovascular health much more significantly than what we have imagined,” said Tang in an interview.