Nat Metab: high protein diet may lead to arterial embolism

January 28, 2020 / biogas BIOON / -- a high protein diet can help people lose weight and strengthen muscles, but a new study on mice shows that this diet also has a downside: it can lead to more plaque formation in the arteries In addition, new research also shows that high protein diet can stimulate plaque stability decline, easy to rupture and cause artery occlusion Ultimately, it increases the risk of a heart attack The results were recently published in the journal Nature metrology Babak razani, senior author and associate professor of medicine, said: "high protein diet has obvious benefits in weight loss, which has been widely used in recent years But animal studies and some large-scale human based epidemiological studies have linked high dietary protein to cardiovascular disease In this regard, we decided to study whether there is a real causal relationship between high dietary protein and poor cardiovascular health " (image source: www Pixabay Com) researchers studied a mouse model fed a high-fat diet to induce atherosclerosis or plaque accumulation On this basis, the authors compared mice on a high fat and high protein diet with mice on a high fat and low protein diet "To understand whether protein has an impact on cardiovascular health, we tripled the protein intake of mice in the high-fat and high protein diet, while maintaining a stable fat content Protein calories range from 15% to 46% The results showed that the incidence of atherosclerosis was more serious in mice with high fat and high protein diet than in mice with high fat and low protein diet (increased by about 30%) "This study is not the first to show that high protein diet can significantly increase plaque, but through the detailed analysis of plaque, it can make people have a deeper understanding of the impact of high protein diet." Plaque deposits in arteries contain a mixture of fat, cholesterol, calcium deposits and dead cells Previous studies by razani and other groups have shown that macrophages can clear plaque in arteries However, the internal environment of plaque will make these cells overburdened When these cells die, it will make the problem worse, which will lead to plaque accumulation and increase the complexity of plaque To see if high dietary protein increases plaque complexity, razani and his colleagues conducted an in-depth study The results showed that the accumulation of excessive amino acids in high protein diet could activate the mTOR protein activity in macrophages and promote cell growth Signals from mTOR shut down the ability of macrophages to remove toxic waste and triggered a series of events leading to macrophage death The researchers found that some amino acids, especially leucine and arginine, have a positive effect in activating the mTOR pathway, leading to cell death Tina mittendorfer, Nathan O Stitziel, Joel D Schilling, Irfan J Lodhi, Babak Razani High-protein diets increase cardiovascular risk by activating macrophage mTOR to suppress mitophagy Nature Metabolism , 2020; 2 (1): 110 DOI: 10.1038/s42255-019-0162-4