Posted on 12/08/2021 8:26:27 AM PST by Red Badger
New research from the University of East Anglia and Quadram Institute reveals how our immune cells use the body’s fat stores to fight infection.
The research, published today (December 8, 2021) in the journal Nature Communications, could help develop new approaches to treating people with bacterial infections.
The research team says their work could one day help treat infections in vulnerable and older people.
The team studied Salmonella — a bacterial infection that causes diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fever, and sepsis.
The UEA team collaborated with the Quadram Institute and colleagues at the Earlham Institute, to track fatty acid movement and consumption in live stem cells. They went on to analyze the immune response to Salmonella bacterial infection, by analyzing liver damage.
They uncovered how blood stem cells respond to infection, by acquiring high energy fatty acids from the body’s fat stores.
The team found that in the bone marrow where blood stem cells are resident, infection signals drive adipocytes to release their fat stores as fatty acids into the blood.
And they identified that these high energy fatty acids are then taken up by blood stem cells, effectively feeding the stem cells and enabling them to make millions of Salmonella-fighting white blood cells.
The researchers also identified the mechanism by which the fatty acids are transferred and discussed the potential impact this new knowledge could have on future treatment of infection.
Dr. Stuart Rushworth, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Our results provide insight into how the blood and immune system is able to respond to infection.
“Fighting infection takes a lot of energy and fat stores are huge energy deposits, which provide the fuel for the blood stem cells to power up the immune response.
“Working out the mechanism through which this ‘fuel boost’ works gives us new ideas on how to strengthen the bodies fight against infection in the future.”
Dr. Naiara Beraza, from the Quadram institute, said: “Our results allow us to understand how our immune system uses fat to fuel the response to infection. Defining these mechanisms will enable us to develop new therapeutics to treat infections in the liver.”
Dr. Rushworth said: “In the future, I hope our findings will help improve treatment for vulnerable and older people with infections, by strengthening their immune response.
“With antibiotic resistance being such a present and widespread challenge for society, there is an urgent need to explore novel ways like this to help the body’s immune system to fight infection,” he added.
Reference: “Free fatty-acid transport via CD36 drives β-oxidation-mediated hematopoietic stem cell response to infection” by Jayna J. Mistry, Charlotte Hellmich, Jamie A. Moore, Aisha Jibril, Iain Macaulay, Mar Moreno-Gonzalez, Federica Di Palma, Naiara Beraza, Kristian M. Bowles and Stuart A. Rushworth, 8 December 2021, Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27460-9
The study was led by UEA and QI in collaboration with the Earlham Institute. It was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), with support from the UK Medical Research Council.
WELL HELL...I’m good to about 2050
Me Too ,LOL
Waiter!!!!! Another piece of cheese cake please
Butter is bad.
Butter is good.
Salt is bad.
Salt is good.
Coffee is bad.
Coffee is good.
Eggs are bad.
Eggs are good.
Fat is bad.
Fat is good.
These people don’t know anything about anything.
I’m very fond of (moderate) love handles.
“The bacterial infection diet craze” makes NYT best seller paperback list
When I lost 15 pounds during my two and a half week of covid, had thought it was all due to lack of appetite...now not so sure (10 of those pounds came back already—just in case another sickness attacks).
Get an infection, just go get a few Big Macs and doughnuts.
So, eating a high fat diet during an infection will help? I’m not sure I get the gist of the article. Fat is unhealthy and the downside far outweighs the upside—even when used to fight infection. Confused I am.
Knew that stash of bonbons would come in handy.
“Feed a cold, starve a fever.”
“These people don’t know anything about anything.”
They KNOW the vaccine is good.
They KNOW we have to do something about global warming.
Haven’t had a ‘cold’ in years.............................Heart disease is another question......................
Rather interesting. At my last visit to the dietician she encouraged me to ‘fatten’ up a bit saying that she was concerned that my body fat was getting too low for man of my age.
Rather interesting. At my last visit to the dietician she encouraged me to ‘fatten’ up a bit saying that she was concerned that my body fat was getting too low for man of my age, that I might need the extra fat to fight infections and illnesses.
No wonder I never get sick...
Plavix laced
Fried Chicken,,,
.
Wonder Chicken!
If you do decide to up your fat intake, make sure you choose the right fats. Butter, cream, grassfed beef, wildcaught salmon, sardines, extra virgin olive oil, pecans, macadamias — the best you can reasonably afford. It doesn’t take much. And your dietician is right, esp. if you’re currently quite lean. Older folks with more body fat — within reason, of course — are healthier and have much better outcomes when sick or injured than those who are lean and wiry.
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