354: How a Gut Microbe Worsens Heart Disease

354: How a Gut Microbe Worsens Heart Disease

From This Week in Microbiology by Vincent Racaniello

April 24, 2026 · 59 min · Episode 354

About this episode

The episode discusses how a gut microbe can worsen heart disease and its implications for health.

TWiM explains a candidate signature of health in the gut microbial community, and how an intestinal bacterium exacerbates cardiac ischemia/reperfusion injury. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello , Michael Schmidt , Michele Swanson and Petra Levin . Become a patron of TWiM. Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission. Links for this episode A candidate signature of health in the gut microbiome (Cell Host Microbe) 204,938 reference genomes from the human gut microbiome (Nat Biotech) A human gut metagenome-assembled genome catalogue spanning 41 countries (Nat Micro) A comprehensive ruminant microbial catalog (Gigascience) Bacteroides acidifaciens exacerbates cardiac ischemia/reperfusion injury (Cell Host Microbe) The Great Ozempic Experiment (NY Times, paywall) Take the TWiM Listener surve y! Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to twim@microbe.tv

People in this episode

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Michele Swanson, Petra Levin

Topics covered

  • gut microbiome
  • heart disease
  • cardiac ischemia
  • bacteria
  • health
  • microbial community

Keywords

  • gut microbiome
  • heart disease
  • Bacteroides acidifaciens
  • ischemia
  • reperfusion injury
  • microbial health
  • intestinal bacterium

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Cell Host Microbe, Nat Biotech, Nat Micro, Gigascience, The Great Ozempic Experiment

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