A friendly gut microbe that sweeps cholesterol from arteries like a natural statin

Scientists at Sun Yat-sen University found that people with heart disease carry much lower levels of a common gut bacterium, Bacteroides uniformis. In mice with clogged arteries, the bacterium — and the fatty-acid molecule it makes, pentadecanoic acid — shrank artery plaque by about a third with the live bacterium and about half with the molecule, while lowering total cholesterol and LDL, the 'bad cholesterol.' The molecule blocks the same liver enzyme that statins target, prompting the liver to pull excess cholesterol from the blood — a promising new path for heart treatments beyond statins. (Mouse work plus samples from 200+ human donors; early but with a causal mechanism.)