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Yet another study, by the same US research team, links raised risk of heart attack and stroke to the action of gut bacteria on certain compounds contained in digested food. This time the link is to a compound found in eggs: lecithin. Earlier this month, researchers reported in Nature Medicine how they found L-carnitine, a compound found in red meat and added to energy drinks, can increase heart risk because gut bacteria digest it to produce trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), a metabolite already suspected of helping to clog up arteries.

New study reveals molecular mechanism promoting the breakdown of plaque by statinsIn a new study, NYU Langone Medical Center researchers have discovered how cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins promote the breakdown of plaque in the arteries... The findings support a large clinical study that recently showed patients taking high-doses of the cholesterol-lowering medications not only reduced their cholesterol levels but also reduced the amount of plaque in their arteries. However, until now researchers did not fully understand how statins could reduce atherosclerosis, the accumulation of fat and cholesterol that hardens into plaque in arteries, a major cause of mortality in Western...