interesting snippet from an article from this year(2015)

"There’s been another shake-up in our understanding of the causes of cardiovascular disease. Cholesterol is still king. But it now shares explanatory power with a swarm of bacteria resident in the digestive tract. The first studies of these bacteria (reviewed here) found direct links between the chemical product of their metabolism and the vascular events leading to heart attack. Now studies are linking these bacteria to heart failure and even chronic kidney disease."-link