Western Diet Triggers off the Immune System Similar to a Bacterial Infection : Study
The developing world is witness to rapid urbanization, with more than half of the world’s population now living in cities. With this progression comes an urban lifestyle- one with less physical activity and loads of junk/Western diet.
A disturbing new study led by scientists at the University of Bonn suggests that the immune system responds to a fast food-style Western diet in much the same way as it would react to a bacterial infection.
As well as stimulating widespread inflammatory activity, the study claims that switching to a healthy diet may not fully reverse the long-term damage once initially triggered.
“It has only recently been discovered that the innate immune system has a memory,” Lead researcher Eicke Latz, MD, PhD, the founder and director of the Institute of Innate Immunity at the University of Bonn, Germany, said in a press release.
“After an infection, the body’s defenses remain in a hyperactive, alarmed state, so that it can respond more quickly to a new attack. Our team of researchers discovered that the Western diet has a similar impact, and, therefore, these findings have enormous relevance to society and potential therapeutic implications.”
In the course of the investigation, researchers studied three groups of mice: one group given a standard chow diet, another fed a Western diet and a third fed a Western diet before switching back to standard chow.
This caused them to develop a strong inflammatory response throughout the body – as if they had been infected with dangerous bacteria. An increase in the number of certain immune cells was observed, particularly granulocytes and monocytes, indicates that immune progenitor cells in the bone marrow are involved.
“The unhealthy diet led to an unexpected increase in the number of certain immune cells in the blood of the mice, especially granulocytes and monocytes. This was an indication for an involvement of immune cell progenitors in the bone marrow,” Anette Christ, postdoctoral fellow in the Institute of Innate Immunity of the University of Bonn explains. To better understand these unexpected findings, bone marrow progenitors for major immune cell types were isolated from mice fed a Western diet or healthy control diet and a systematic analysis of their function and activation state was performed.
The researchers then looked at the blood of 120 subjects and identified a ‘fast food sensor’, which gave rise to a strong immune response. Genetic tests highlighted a role for the inflammasome – a key signaling complex that recognizes pathogens and releases inflammatory signals. How exactly the inflammasome detects the ‘Western’ diet remains to be determined.
“The inflammasome triggers such epigenetic changes”, explains Latz. “The immune system consequently reacts even to small stimuli with stronger inflammatory responses.”
Wrong nutrition can thus have dramatic consequences.
“These findings therefore have important societal relevance”, explains Latz. “The foundations of a healthy diet need to become a much more prominent part of education than they are at present. Only in this way can we immunize children at an early stage against the temptations of the food industry. Children have a choice of what they eat every day. We should enable them to make conscious decisions regarding their dietary habits.”
