A gut microbiome-kidney-heart axis predictive of future cardiovascular diseases.

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain a major global health challenge. Early markers of disease initiation and progression are urgently needed. We, and others, have previously shown changes in the gut microbiome in association with metabolic and CVD. Here, we demonstrate that gut microbiome-related changes can be detected in association with subclinical variations in heart and kidney function. Markers related to gut microbial metabolism of aromatic amino acids, phenylalanine and tyrosine, associate with circulating pro-atrial natriuretic peptide and estimated glomerular filtration rate in a metabolically healthy European population. Observational and genetic evidence further identify microbiome-related metabolites as mediators of this gut microbiome-kidney axis, with their baseline levels associating with incident CVD in an external Canadian population. Altogether, our work suggests that the gut microbiome interacts with the cardiorenal axis and participates in an interorgan crosstalk affecting host physiology and risk of CVD.