Human Gut Microbes Associated with Systolic Blood Pressure

Abstract

Emerging studies have revealed a strong link between the gut microbiome and several human diseases. Since human gut microbiome mirrors variations in lifestyle and environment, whether associations between disease conditions and gut microbiome are consistent across populations—particularly in communities practicing traditional subsistence strategies whose microbiomes differ markedly from industrialists—remains unknown. Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality in India affecting 55 million people, and high blood pressure is one of the primary risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. We examined associations between gut microbiome and blood pressure along with 14 other variables associated with lifestyle, dietary habits, disease conditions, and clinical blood markers in the three Assamese populations. Our analysis reveals a robust link between the gut microbiome diversity and composition and systolic blood pressure. Moreover, several genera previously associated with hypertension in non-Indian populations were also associated with systolic blood pressure in this cohort and these genera were predictors of elevated blood pressure in these populations. These findings confer opportunities to design personalized, preventative, and targeted interventions harnessing the gut microbiome to tackle the burden of cardiovascular diseases in India.

Profile of Gut Bacteria in Hypertensive Patients Based on Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis

“…Our data showed that F/B ratio in hypertensive patients was higher than that of non-hypertensives. Yang et al (2015) and Joishy et al (2022) have also reported that the (F/B) ratio was found increased in hypertensive patients. Given an imbalanced F/B ratio in hypertensive patient, we know that there is the alteration of gut microbiota composition towards dysbiosis correlated with this particular cardiovascular disease.…”

Combating Hypertension Beyond GWAS: Microbiome and Artificial Intelligence as Opportunities for Precision Medicine

“…This direct relationship between F/B ratio and BP has also been documented in various mouse models (Marques et al, 2017 ; Toral et al, 2018 ). Similarly, human studies (Mushtaq et al, 2019 ; Silveira-Nunes et al, 2020 ; Joishy et al, 2022 ) also support a direct relationship between F/B ratio and BP. In contrast, cold-induced HTN (Wang et al, 2022 ) is one of the rare contexts wherein F/B ratio was not altered significantly.…”

“…Supporting this notion, studies have shown that F. prausnitzii is significantly abundant in normotensive compared to hypertensive humans, demonstrating strong correlation of this specific microbe with BP (Yan et al, 2017;Calderón-Pérez et al, 2020). However, in contradiction, Faecalibacterium was more enriched in individuals with high BP (Joishy et al, 2022). Therefore, there is a need to directly examine the potential of F. prausnitzii in rigorous animal model studies.…”

Impact of fundamental components of the Mediterranean diet on the microbiota composition in blood pressure regulation

“…Interestingly, the Coprococcus genus has been linked to normal blood pressure [151]. Conversely, a study by found that hypertensive patients had a higher abundance of species from the Roseburia genus [152], whereas, for the Faecalibacterium genus, the results are conflicting; some studies have associated a higher abundance of the genus with hypertension, while others have correlated a lower relative abundance with hypertension [152][153][154].…”