Gut Microbiota Functional Dysbiosis Relates to Individual Diet in Subclinical Carotid Atherosclerosis

Gut Microbiota (GM) dysbiosis associates with Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Diseases
(ACVD), but whether this also holds true in subjects without clinically manifest ACVD represents
a challenge of personalized prevention. We connected exposure to diet (self-reported by food diaries)
and markers of Subclinical Carotid Atherosclerosis (SCA) with individual taxonomic and functional
GM profiles (from fecal metagenomic DNA) of 345 subjects without previous clinically manifest
ACVD. Subjects without SCA reported consuming higher amounts of cereals, starchy vegetables,
milky products, yoghurts and bakery products versus those with SCA (who reported to consume
more mechanically separated meats). The variety of dietary sources significantly overlapped
with the separations in GM composition between subjects without SCA and those with SCA (RV
coefficient between nutrients quantities and microbial relative abundances at genus level = 0.65, pvalue
= 0.047). Additionally, specific bacterial species (Faecalibacterium prausnitzii in the absence of SCA
and Escherichia coli in the presence of SCA) are directly related to over-representation of metagenomic
pathways linked to different dietary sources (sulfur oxidation and starch degradation in
absence of SCA, and metabolism of amino acids, syntheses of palmitate, choline, carnitines and
Trimethylamine n-oxide in presence of SCA). These findings might contribute to hypothesize future
strategies of personalized dietary intervention for primary CVD prevention setting.