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

Authors

Kanta Chechi, Rima Chakaroun, Antonis Myridakis, Sofia K Forslund-Startceva, Sebastien Fromentin, Trine Nielsen, Judith Aron-Wisneswky, Eugeni Belda, Edi Prifti, Pierre Bel Lassen, Gwen Falony, Sara Vieira-Silva, Julien Chilloux, Kazuhiro Sonomura, Lesley Hoyles, Laura Martinez-Gili, Francesco Pallotti, Petros Andrikopoulos, Francesc Puig-Castellví, Romina Pacheco Tapia, Inés Castro-Dionicio, Hugo Roume, Nicolas Pons, Emmanuelle Le Chatelier, Benoit Quinquis, Nathalie Galleron, Magali Berland, Michael T Olanipekun, Manyi Jia, Angelos Manolias, Bridget Holmes, Solia Adriouch, Matthias Blüher, Luis Pedro Coelho, Kévin Da Silva, Pilar Galan, Boyang Ji, Ana Luisa Neves, Christine Rouault, Joe-Elie Salem, Valentina Tremaroli, Tue H Hansen, Nadja B Søndertoft, Christian Lewinter, Helle K Pedersen, MetaCardis Consortium, Peter D Mark, Jens P Goetze, Lars Køber, Henrik Vestergaard, Torben Hansen, Jean-Daniel Zucker, Taka-Aki Sato, Serge Hercberg, Fredrik Bäckhed, Ivica Letunic, Jean-Michel Oppert, Jens Nielsen, Jeroen Raes, Ioanna Tzoulaki, Abbas Dehghan, Verena Zuber, Emmanuelle Bouzigon, Mark Lathrop, Parminder Raina, Philippe Froguel, Fumihiko Matsuda, Florence Demenais, Dominique Gauguier, Michael Stumvoll, Peer Bork, Oluf Pedersen, S Dusko Ehrlich, Karine Clément, Marc-Emmanuel Dumas

Abstract

Nat Commun. 2026 Mar 5. doi: 10.1038/s41467-026-69405-0. Online ahead of print.

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.

PMID:41786749 | DOI:10.1038/s41467-026-69405-0