In an analysis of more than 50,000 individuals from around the world, carriers of gut Blastocystis, a single-celled organism that has been labeled either a parasite or harmless organism but is commonly found in the digestive system, was linked to indicators of good cardiovascular health and decreased body fat. The research is published in Cell by an international team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). "Blastocystis' effects on health and disease are controversial and likely context-dependent, but our research suggests that it may play a beneficial role in how diet impacts human health and disease," said co-lead author Long H.
Nguyen, MD, MS, a physician investigator in the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit and Division of Gastroenterology at MGH, and an assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "At the very least, its ubiquity may suggest a non-pathogenic role." Nguyen, who is also a Chen Institute Department of Medicine Transformative Scholar at MGH, and colleagues sought to establish the relationship between gut Blastocystis, nutrition, and subsequent cardiometabolic health outcomes, including overweight/obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease .
To do so, they performed a large-scale study integrating and harmonizing data on nearly 57,000 individuals from 32 countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, focusing on Blastocystis and investigating whether its presence alters the effects of .
