TMAO

In 2011, Stan Hazen and collaborators identified a metabolite in plasma, which originates from the diet-microbe "morbid union". nitially, it was found to originate from dietary choline / lecithin metabolism by gut microbes. It has been shown to be directlty involved in cardiovascular disease (especially atherosclerosis in mice animal models) and to be an important factor of cardiovascular risk and mortality in humans. In 2017, meta-analyses clearly indicate that pTMAO is an important risk factors, considering all-cause mortality, in a dose dependent and direct association.