Impact of lifestyle on carotid vascular pathogenesis is mediated by the gut microbiome: A population-based analysis of gut microbiome in Chinese elderly

Abstract

Background The altered microbiota, considered as quantitative traits has also been identified to play pivotal roles in the host vascular physiology and might contribute to diseases. To understand the role of fecal microbiota on the vascular physiology in the healthy elderly population and how lifestyle such as diet and income shape the composition of host gut microbiota to further impact pathogenesis of carotid vascular diseases.Results We performed a population-based fecal metagenomic study over 569 elderly asymptomatic healthy individuals in rural China. An association network was built based on clinical measurements and detailed epidemiologic questionnaires including blood chemistry, arterial stiffness, carotid ultrasonography, and metagenomic datasets. Carotid arterial atherosclerosis indices including intima-media thickness (IMT) were shown essential in the network and were significantly associated with lifestyles and diet. Fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, and fresh aquatic food can significantly reduce carotid artery IMT, especially in the mediation of Alistipes and Parabacteroides genus. Higher income, and exercise which are shown to improve carotid arteries mediated by Prevotella and Oligella genus.Conclusions Our study provided a Chinese population-wide phenotype-metagenomic network, revealing association and mediation effect of gut microbiota on carotid atherosclerosis by lifestyle, hinting at a therapeutic and preventive potential of microbiota in cardiovascular diseases.