Your gut can give you a heart attack!

Is gut bacteria putting you at risk for heart disease? I recently read an article I would have expected to hear from an alternative medicine source. Or an eastern medicine source, or a holistic medicine source. But never from a traditional medicine source. It was an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the beacons of traditional medicine. They published an article that links gut bacteria to heart attack. So what’s the big deal? It means that it is not cholesterol per se, but bacteria that causes heart attack. It means that the value of Big Pharma’s blockbuster statin drugs is in question even in mainstream medical literature.  The same thing happened when Lancet published the benefits of fish oil for heart disease in 1970. Did it lower Big Pharma’s big revenue? Probably not.  But should we make any practical conclusion from this recent discovery? What they found is that gut bacteria can convert the beneficial nutrient phosphatidylcholine (lecithin) into trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO). This organic compound promotes plaque progress in the heart and other arteries that may result in heart damage and eventually in heart attack or stroke.  (Plaque is a buildup of fatty material on the arterial wall.) That means that if you are eating lecithin-rich products like eggs, liver, beef and pork, you might be in danger. In my opinion there are 2 major flaws on this publication: They never checked if the gut flora of the study participants was normal.  ...
Source: Doctor Kalitenko antiaging blog - Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: Source Type: blogs