Higher risk of stroke is correlated with increased opportunistic pathogen load and reduced levels of butyrate-producing bacteria in the gut.

The purpose of the present study is to utilize a Stroke Risk Scorecard, which was also popularly recommended to stroke risk screening by National Stroke Association(http://www.stroke.org/stroke-resources/resource-library/stroke-risk-scorecard), to understand the relationship between gut microbiome alterations and the overall stroke risk. The results suggested that gut microbiota might be a new risk factor for stroke.