Gyanaranjan Nayak, Kyriakos Dimitriadis, Nikolaos Pyrpyris, Magdalini Manti, Nikolaos Kamperidis, Vasileios Kamperidis, Antonios Ziakas, Konstantinos Tsioufis
The role of the gut microbiome (GM) and oral microbiome (OM) in cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been increasingly being understood in recent years. It is well known that GM is a risk factor for various CVD phenotypes, including hypertension, dyslipidemia, heart failure and atrial fibrillation. However, its role in valvular heart disease (VHD) is less well understood. Research shows that, direct, microbe-mediated and indirect, metabolite-mediated damage as a result of gut dysbiosis and environmental factors results in a subclinical, chronic, systemic inflammatory state, which promotes inflammatory cell infiltration in heart valves and subsequently, via pro-inflammatory molecules, initiates a cascade of reaction, resulting in valve calcification, fibrosis and dysfunction...
April 19, 2024: Life