Research

Hormonal

Elevated plasma levels of Trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, thrombosis, and atherosclerosis, primarily through platelet hyper-reactivity and macrophage scavenger receptor stimulation.

High levels of TMAO, produced when gut bacteria metabolize choline and carnitine from foods like red meat and eggs, are linked to higher cardiovascular risk and blood clotting. To mitigate this, balance your intake of these foods with high-fiber diets that may alter microbiota composition, and monitor TMAO levels if you have existing cardiovascular risk factors.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Elevated plasma levels of TMAO have been associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, incident thrombosis risk, and carotid intima-media thickness... elevated levels of circulating TMAO resulted in enhanced aortic atherosclerotic plaque lesions, increased thrombus formation... stimulated expression of two macrophage scavenger receptors (CD36, SRA)... TMAO enhanced the function of human platelets and increased platelet adhesion.
François Brial et al. · Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences · 2018

Why this rating

Strong observational data in humans and mechanistic data in mice; causality in humans is still debated but association is robust.

Source

Implication of gut microbiota metabolites in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases

François Brial et al. · Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences · 2018

DOI 10.1007/s00018-018-2901-1

narrative_reviewCited 197×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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