{"id":165574,"date":"2024-10-25T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T01:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/?p=165574"},"modified":"2025-05-06T18:32:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T00:32:53","slug":"diet-immune-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/health\/diet-immune-system\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is How Your Diet Can Change Your Immune System"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last year, new studies revealed data on the influence of what we eat on our long-term health. For example, in April, Chinese scientists published research explaining that an anti-inflammatory diet can reduce cognitive decline<\/a> by up to 21%. Another paper from May points out that keto diets consumed for long periods<\/a> can accelerate the aging of cells in our organs, increasing the risk of heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. But can diet<\/a><\/strong> also change our immune <\/a>s<\/a>ystem<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An article published this month in Nature<\/a><\/em> reviews recent research<\/strong> focused on the relationship between diet<\/a> and the <\/strong>immune system<\/a>. In recent years, this connection has been a favorite of marketing to sell products that supposedly improve consumers\u2019 health, although they don\u2019t always have scientific evidence to back them up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of rigorous scientific evidence is partly due to the complexity of studies<\/strong> that effectively document what people eat and track their long-term health. Additionally, this type of research is often costly. As for animal studies, the results are not always clear or fully applicable to humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Is the Relationship Between Diet and the Immune System Being Approached?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Nature<\/em> article explains that traditionally, nutrition scientists focused their studies on the long-term impacts of Mediterranean <\/strong>or Western diets<\/strong>. However, they now have tools to investigate their short-term effects and include more restricted food groups. Additionally, over the past five years, researchers have also approached the relationship between diet <\/strong>and the immune system<\/strong>, and their findings are beginning to garner attention and funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn April, the New England Journal of Medicine<\/em> released a series of review articles on nutrition, immunity, and diseases. Additionally, in January, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services held its first Food is Medicine summit in Washington, D.C., which explored the links between food insecurity, diet, and chronic diseases,\u201d states the article<\/a> published this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding the diet-immune system<\/strong> relationship, the article points out that a group of researchers argue that modern diets, especially those in the Western world, have diminished our immune resilience<\/strong>. However, others are more optimistic and see diet<\/strong> as an opportunity to treat<\/strong> a variety of health problems <\/strong>such as cancers and chronic immunological disorders like lupus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are learning much more about how the immune system<\/strong> can be modulated with individual components or combinations of food components,” says immunologist Francesco Siracusa<\/strong> of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany. In an interview with Nature<\/em>, he adds, “The flourishing of the field of personalized nutrition<\/strong> over the past five to six years is very exciting.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning personalized nutrition<\/strong>, in a recent interview with TecScience<\/em><\/a>, Ski Chilton<\/strong>, the researcher who leads the Precision Nutrition and Wellness Center<\/a> at the University of Arizona and who is part of the Tec de Monterrey’s Faculty of Excellence<\/a> initiative, explained that this type of precision <\/strong>approach began with the search for new options for cancer treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCurrently, precision<\/strong> has increased dramatically in all areas of medicine. It has grown in nutrition and wellness, but primarily refers to the ability to take immense amounts of data<\/strong> \u2014genomic, metabolomic, clinical\u2014 obtain many, many millions of inputs, and introduce them into machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that allow us to individualize healthcare<\/strong> for each person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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