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Review
. 2023 Apr 21;12(4):627.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens12040627.

Familial Hypercholesterolemia and Acute Coronary Syndromes: The Microbiota-Immunity Axis in the New Diagnostic and Prognostic Frontiers

Andrea Piccioni  1 , Elena Niccolai  2 , Gloria Rozzi  1 , Giacomo Spaziani  1 , Christian Zanza  3 , Marcello Candelli  1 , Marcello Covino  1 , Antonio Gasbarrini  4 , Francesco Franceschi  1 , Amedeo Amedei  2
Affiliations
Review

Familial Hypercholesterolemia and Acute Coronary Syndromes: The Microbiota-Immunity Axis in the New Diagnostic and Prognostic Frontiers

Andrea Piccioni et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Familial hypercholesterolemia is a common genetic disorder with a propensity towards early onset of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD). The main goal of therapy is to reduce the LDL cholesterol and the current treatment generally consists of statin, ezetimibe and PCSK9 inhibitors. Unfortunately, lowering LDL cholesterol may be difficult for many reasons such as the variation of response to statin therapy among the population or the high cost of some therapies (i.e., PCSK9 inhibitors). In addition to conventional therapy, additional strategies may be used. The gut microbiota has been recently considered to play a part in chronic systemic inflammation and hence in CVD. Several studies, though they are still preliminary, consider dysbiosis a risk factor for various CVDs through several mechanisms. In this review, we provide an update of the current literature about the intricate relation between the gut microbiota and the familial hypercholesterolemia.

Keywords: LDL; acute coronary syndromes; atherosclerosis; cardiovascular disease; coagulation; familial hypercholesterolemia; gut microbiota.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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