Atherosclerosis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of large- and medium-sized arteries that causes ischemic heart disease, strokes, and peripheral vascular disease, collectively called cardiovascular disease (CVD), and is the leading cause of CVD resulting in a high rate of mortality in the population. AS is pathological by plaque development, which is caused by lipid infiltration in the vessel wall, endothelial dysfunction, and chronic low-grade inflammation. Recently, more and more scholars have paid attention to the importance of intestinal microecological disorders in the occurrence and development of AS. Intestinal G-bacterial cell wall lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and bacterial metabolites, such as oxidized trimethylamine (TMAO) and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), are involved in the development of AS by affecting the inflammatory response, lipid metabolism, and blood pressure regulation of the body. Additionally, intestinal microecology promotes the progression of AS by interfering with the normal bile acid metabolism of the body. In this review, we summarize the research on the correlation between maintaining a dynamic balance of intestinal microecology and AS, which may be potentially helpful for the treatment of AS.

Recent studies have revealed that the effect of intestinal microecological disorders on organismal physiology is not limited to the digestive system, which provides new perspectives for microecological studies and new ideas for clinical diagnosis and prevention of microecology-related diseases. Stress triggers impairment of intestinal mucosal barrier function, which could be duplicated by animal models. In this paper, pathological animal models with high prevalence and typical stressors—corresponding to three major stressors of external environmental factors, internal environmental factors, and social psychological factors, respectively exemplified by burns, intestinal ischemia-reperfusion injury (IIRI), and depression models—were selected. We summarized the construction and evaluation of these typical animal models and the effects of stress on the organism and intestinal barrier, as well as systematically discussed the effects of different stresses on the intestinal mucosal barrier and intestinal microecology.

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