Elevated levels of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO)—a compound linked with the consumption of seafood and a primarily vegetarian diet—may reduce hypertension-related heart disease symptoms. New research in rats finds that low-dose treatment with TMAO reduced heart thickening (cardiac fibrosis) and markers of heart failure in an animal model of hypertension. The study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology—Heart and Circulatory Physiology and was chosen as an APSselect article for November.
Elevated levels of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO)—a compound linked with the consumption of seafood and a primarily vegetarian diet—may reduce hypertension-related heart disease symptoms. New research in rats finds that low-dose treatment with TMAO reduced heart thickening (cardiac fibrosis) and markers of heart failure in an animal model of hypertension. The study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology—Heart and Circulatory Physiology and was chosen as an APSselect article for November.
TMAO levels in the blood significantly increase after eating TMAO-rich food such as fish and vegetables. In addition, the liver produces TMAO from trimethylamine (TMA), a substance made by gut bacteria. The cause of high TMAO levels in the blood and the compound’s effects on the heart and circulatory system are unclear, and earlier research has been contradictory. It was previously thought that TMAO blood plasma levels—and heart disease risk—rise after the consumption of red meat and eggs. However, “it seems that fish-rich and vegetarian diet, which is beneficial or at least neutral for cardiovascular risk, is associated with a significantly higher plasma TMAO than red meat- and egg-rich diets, which are considered to increase the cardiovascular risk,” researchers from the Medical University of Warsaw in Poland and the Polish Academy of Sciences wrote.
Read more at American Physiological Society
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