Study links gut microbe shifts in migrants to cardiovascular risk

Amsterdam University Medical CenterApr 8 2025An Amsterdam UMC-led study has found that migrants, this case from West Africa to Europe, experience a 'clear change' in their microbiome composition as compared to their non-migrant peers in West Africa, which expose them to an increase of cardiovascular disease. These peer-reviewed findings are published today in the journal Gut Microbes demonstrating that participants who lost specific groups of microbes or acquired specific new groups of microbes had higher rates of cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and poor kidney function."The results clearly demonstrate the importance of our findings in the relation to migration-related health outcomes," explains postdoctoral researcher at Amsterdam UMC and first author of the study, Barbara Verhaar, who carried out the research together with colleagues at the University of Ghana, and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST).It was already thought tha...