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Review
. 2023 Feb 28;15(5):1223.
doi: 10.3390/nu15051223.

Diet-Induced Microbiome's Impact on Heart Failure: A Double-Edged Sword

Alexandre Rodrigues  1   2   3 , Alexandre Gonçalves  3   4 , Juliana Morais  3   5 , Ricardo Araujo  1   2 , Inês Falcão-Pires  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Diet-Induced Microbiome's Impact on Heart Failure: A Double-Edged Sword

Alexandre Rodrigues et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Heart failure (HF) is a debilitating disease with a significant clinical and economic impact worldwide. Multiple factors seem to increase the risk of developing HF, such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes. Since chronic inflammation plays a significant role in HF pathophysiology and gut dysbiosis is associated with low-grade chronic inflammation, the risk of cardiovascular diseases is likely modulated by the gut microbiome (GM). Considerable progress has been made in HF management. However, there is a need to find new strategies to reduce mortality and increase the quality of life, mainly of HFpEF patients, since its prevalence continues to rise. Recent studies validate that lifestyle changes, such as diet modulation, represent a potential therapeutic approach to improve several cardiometabolic diseases, although their effects on the GM and its indirect cardiac impact still warrant further research. Hence, in this paper, we aim to clarify the link between HF and the human microbiome.

Keywords: HFpEF; HFrEF; diet; heart failure; inflammation; microbiome.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of the influence of gut microbiome (GM) modulation and metabolites in the cardiovascular system and in HF (heart failure). TMAO, trimethylamine N-oxide; SCFAs, short-chain fatty acids; IBD, inflammatory bowel disease; IL-1β, interleukin 1 beta; IL-10, interleukin 10; TNF-α, Tumor Necrosis Factor alfa; ↑, increased; ↓, decreased. The figure was produced using Servier Medical Art by Servier, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, accessed on 20 March 2022).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Heatmap representing the changes in the most prevalent bacteria found in the GM at the phylum and genus level in the Mediterranean diet, Western diet, plant-based diet, ketogenic diet, paleolithic diet and intermittent fasting [33,76,86,94,98,102,103,104,105,106,107,108].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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