Cavernous angiomas is a type of abnormal blood vessel in a person’s brain. (Photo: Getty Images/Thinkstock)
Maintaining good gut health is as important as having high immunity and there are certain foods that can help in creating a significant balance of micro bacteria. A new study has put some light on the subject, with research finding a link between cavernous angiomas (CA), a type of brain blood vessel abnormality, and the gut microbiome’s composition.
Cavernous angiomas is a type of abnormal blood vessel in a person’s brain. Surveys suggest that cerebral cavernous malformation (CCM) is present in 0.5 per cent of the population. The common symptoms of CA are headaches, visual disturbances, seizures and at times strokes.
Gut bacteria from the CA patients appeared to produce more lipopolysaccharide molecules which have been shown to drive CA formation in mice. According to the authors, these results provided the first demonstration in humans of a “permissive microbiome” associated with the formation of neurovascular lesions in the brain.
In the study funded by National Institutes of Health, the researchers used advanced genomic analysis techniques to compare stool samples from 122 people who had at least one CA as seen on brain scans, with those from age- and sex-matched, control non-CA participants, including samples collected through the American Gut Project.
“Initially, they found that on average the CA patients had more gram-negative bacteria whereas the controls had more gram-positive bacteria, and that the relative abundance of three gut bacterial species distinguished CA patients from controls regardless of a person’s sex, geographic location, or genetic predisposition to the disease. Moreover, gut bacteria from the CA patients appeared to produce more lipopolysaccharide molecules which have been shown to drive CA formation in mice. According to the authors, these results provided the first demonstration in humans of a “permissive microbiome” associated with the formation of neurovascular lesions in the brain,” read the study.
Further analysis also showed that some gut bacteria compositions could be identified as aggressive versus non-aggressive forms of the disease.