When you think about your heart health, things like cholesterol, blood pressure, or heart rate likely come to mind. However, the health of your entire cardiovascular system depends on much more than this. It is profoundly influenced by your gut microbiome balance and intestinal lining integrity. See how improving your gut health can positively impact your heart.

What Is Gut Dysbiosis?

Your gut microbiome is made up of several trillions of germs. In a healthy gastrointestinal tract, the beneficial flora strains outnumber the non-beneficial strains. When this balance is disrupted, it creates gut dysbiosis—now prevalent in all age groups in America due to diet, toxins, medications, and sedentary lifestyles.

Gut dysbiosis is an imbalance of bacteria, yeast, and other microbes in your intestines. It is generally a dominance of too many non-beneficial germs and not enough beneficial bacteria. Dysbiosis can be present for months, years, or even lifelong.

You may or may not feel dysbiosis, but it can lead to a wide variety of symptoms. These include excessive bowel gas, bloating, burping, constipation, diarrhea, smelly stools, fatigue, brain fog, food intolerances, rash, and other symptoms. Gut dysbiosis can affect a host of other things in the body, including cardiovascular and metabolic health.

How Gut Health Affects Your Heart

Gut dysbiosis stresses your overall health as it causes the release of metabolic products which activate special neuroimmune cells. This leads to the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines like IL-1, IL-6, along with TNF-alpha, and TMAO, etc.

These compounds enter circulation and create systemic inflammation in blood vessels anywhere in your body. Over time, this can lead to poor blood flow, affect coagulation, and contribute to plaque formation.

The effects of dysbiosis can ultimately injure the endothelial lining, cause loss of vessel elasticity, lead to fat deposition in the liver and weight gain, interfere with cholesterol and blood sugar metabolism, and cause other changes in the cardiovascular system. 

Gut dysbiosis can lead to the remodeling and stiffening of the heart muscle, affecting its ability to pump blood. An overgrowth of Candida, or other microorganisms and their metabolites have been implicated in this.

Increased Intestinal Permeability

Gut dysbiosis furthermore increases intestinal permeability and can lead to “leaky gut”. Within the gut lining, there are microscopic doors that normally selectively open and close, allowing nutrients in and other metabolites out. With leaky gut, these doors or junctions remain open longer or wider allowing larger and undesirable particles like LPS toxins, cytokines, and larger food particles to flow into the blood stream.

Intestinal Permeability, Blood Pressure Hormones, and Exercise-Stress Tolerance

Increased intestinal permeability leads to adverse changes throughout the body. It increases chronic low-grade inflammation and can lead to deposition of foam cells and plaque on the inner lining of blood vessels and affect the heart.

It furthermore affects mechanisms of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, the autonomic nervous system and immune system that regulate blood pressure. This crosstalk pattern can also affect heart rate, cardiac output and exercise-stress tolerance.

Factors That Stimulate Dysbiosis and Increased Intestinal Permeability

The two most powerful factors that stimulate the mechanisms of increased intestinal permeability are gut bacterial overgrowth (dysbiosis) and eating foods with gluten.  

Additional factors include the Western diet, ultra-processed foods, consuming food allergens, high stress, several medications like antibiotics, aspirin, ibuprofen, and other NSAIDs, acid blockers/PPIs, microplastics, detergents and emulsifiers found in the environment and food supply, excess and insufficient physical exercise, alcohol, high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids and saturated fats.

Targeted Support for the Gut-Heart Connection

Caring for your gut microbiome-heart connection has many different levels of support. One critical area pertains to short chain fatty acids like butyrate.

1. Increase SCFAs/ Butyrate for Cardiovascular Health

When healthy gut flora chew on fiber-rich whole foods they produce butyrate and other short chain fatty acids (SCFA). Consumption of the Western Diet and restrictive diets with low fiber intake contribute to inadequate SCFAs in the gut. This leads to increased intestinal permeability and gut dysbiosis.

Butyrate and other SCFAs beneficially affect numerous aspects of heart health such as signaling mechanisms and receptors that regulate blood pressure. They reduce production and protect against the release of TNF-a, LPS, and other pro-inflammatory immune compounds in blood vessels, thereby protecting the endothelial lining.

Butyrate induces the formation of beneficial nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) that supports blood vessel dilation and aids in glutathione antioxidant activity. Furthermore, butyrate reduces cholesterol absorption while helping to metabolically excrete it.

Short chain fatty acids like butyrate directly protect and repair the gut lining as well as the endothelial lining of blood vessels.

Tributyrin Plus is a powerful supplement that increases butyrate in the colon. Dietary fiber, resistant starches, whole foods, and supplemental support such as Fiber Helper help to increase butyrate levels.

Other nutrients like vitamin B2, vitamin K, and berberine also increase butyrate and support cardiovascular health for other reasons.

Other Essentials for Gut-Heart Health

2. Eat Whole Foods

Strive for a whole foods diet with 5 - 9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, along with beans, legumes, raw or dry roasted seeds and nuts, pasture raised animal proteins or wild-caught fish, quality fats with increased omega-3 rich foods and reduction of vegetable oils (soybean, corn, canola, safflower, sunflower, etc.).

General protein needs in adults are 0.8 - 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. For example, 150-pound adults need 55 - 100 grams of protein per day depending upon activity level, recovery needs, and digestive health. 

Antioxidant-rich foods that support heart and gut health include oats, brown rice, berries, citrus fruits, dark green vegetables, red and yellow peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes/yams, squashes, garlic, ginger, turmeric/curcumin, and other spices. Choose organic, locally grown, when possible, for a higher nutrient content.

Avoid gluten containing foods, i.e. foods made with white flour, wheat flour, wheat, barley, rye, and sometimes oats. Look for food labels that say gluten free if you are unsure. Gluten consumption is a major factor causing increased intestinal permeability.

3. Be Physically Active

Exercise at least 150 minutes per week. If you have health concerns that prevent you from being this active, start with smaller increments of activity and gradually increase.

4. Protect the Lining of Blood Vessels and Gut Barrier

Inside your blood vessels, is the one-cell thick tissue called the endothelial lining. It is affected by compounds released into circulation from the gut. The gut lining is made up of a mucosal barrier, epithelial lining, and other tissues. Protecting the endothelial and epithelial linings are vital to maintaining and optimizing your health.

Key nutrients and antioxidants for this support include B vitamins, vitamins A, C, D, E, and K, turmeric, Hawthorne berry, omega-3 oils, and coenzyme Q10. These may be found the supplements Daily Energy Multiple Vitamin, Daily Protector Eye & Immune, Vitamin K Complex, Turmeric Gold, Cardio Helper, Leptinal, and Super Coenzyme Q10 Ubiquinol.

5. Support Beneficial Gut Flora

A whole foods diet with a wide variety provides the foundation for your gut microbiome. They need quality foods to “chew on” so they can thrive and outnumber the non-beneficial bacteria. Add fermented foods like organic kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut or other fermented vegetables.

Key supplemental support includes Super Dophilus and GI & Muscle Helper, which provide prebiotics, probiotics, glutamine, and NAGS—working synergistically with the postbiotic butyrate to promote gut health.

Additionally, support such as Oregano Oil, Super Immune Booster, and Monolaurin/Lauricidin help modulate non-beneficial bacteria, supporting a balanced microbiome.

Western medicine compartmentalizes the human body into different specialties to provide specialized care for each system, yet your whole body works together. Over 2000 years ago, Hippocrates said all disease begins in the gut. Science now backs that statement. Support for your gut microbiome-heart interrelationship is fundamental to keeping your heart and 60,000 miles of vessels healthy!

Additional Resources

Leaky Gut Syndrome: More Than Just a Gut Problem

Butyrate Aids Digestive Tract Health: Discover New Tributyrin Plus

Fiber and Your Gut Mucosal Lining

Atrial Fibrillation Linked to Stress, Diabetes, Dental Health and Gut Health

How to Improve Blood Vessel Elasticity

Berberine Supports Cholesterol, Neuroprotection, Butyrate and Gut Health

Nutrients for Your Beating Heart

Revitalize Your Gut: How Prebiotics, Probiotics & Postbiotics Work Together

Gluten Intolerance:What Does It Look Like?

The Power of Walking: Unlocking Health Benefits Step by Step

Periodontal Disease Linked with Diabetes and Heart Health