Changes in Diet May Help Ease Symptoms of Auto-immune Diseases
Akshay Naik 25 December 2018
People afflicted by an auto-immune disease have their body’s immune system turned against them; the disease makes the normally guarding ‘defence’ cells mistakenly attack the body. There are numerous auto-immune diseases that have been discovered and classified; however, the reasons and cure for these diseases are not, yet, clear. Now, new research has uncovered how a dietary intervention could help prevent the development of the auto-immune disease, lupus.
 
Using the mouse models of lupus, the team from Yale University set out to test the role of diet and the microbiota and then dissect its mechanisms, as the role of commensal bacteria in auto-immunity remains unclear. “We dissected, molecularly, how diets work on the gut microbiome,” said senior author Dr Martin Kriegel, associate professor adjunct in the department of immunobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. “We identified a pathway that is driving auto-immune disease and mitigated by the diet.”
 
The study, published in the science journal Cell Host & Microbe, reveals how the team first identified the bacterium, Lactobacillus reuteri, in the gut of the mice as the one that triggered an immune response leading to the disease. In lupus-prone mice, L. reuteri stimulated immune cells known as dendritic cells, as well as immune system pathways that exacerbated disease development. To investigate the potential impact of diet on the presence of this bacteria in the mice, lead author Daniel Zegarra-Ruiz, a graduate student in the lab, fed the mice ‘resistant starch’—a diet that mimics a high-fibre diet in humans. 
 
Foods that are high in resistant starch are rice, whole grains, such as oats and barley, beans, peas and lentils. The resistant starch is not absorbed in the small intestine but ferments in the large intestine, enriching good bacteria and causing the secretion of short-chain fatty acids. This helps in suppressing both, the growth and movement, of L. reuteri bacteria outside the gut that would, otherwise, lead to auto-immune disease. 
 
This study details an important link between diet, gut bacteria and auto-immunity. The researchers feel that more studies would be required to discern how the findings might apply to humans. This study is also important because it found an imbalance of gut microbes in a sub-set of lupus patients that was similar to what they observed in lupus-prone mice not given the starch diet. In this sub-set of lupus patients, a high-fibre diet could potentially be beneficial in preventing or alleviating the condition and other diseases that activate the same immune pathway can benefit.
 
Comments
Ramesh Poapt
7 years ago
a good one!
Free Helpline
Legal Credit
Feedback