In a new study by the National Institutes of Health, researchers discovered that changing your diet can have a big impact on your body’s immune system.
They looked at two popular diets: vegan and ketogenic (often called keto) and found that each diet triggers different responses in our immune system.
The vegan diet is all about eating plants and avoiding animal products. It’s usually high in fiber and low in fat.
The keto diet, on the other hand, is low in carbs and high in fat. People often try these diets for various reasons, like losing weight or feeling healthier.
The scientists had 20 people try each diet for two weeks, and then switch to the other diet for another two weeks. These participants were a diverse group, different in ethnicity, race, gender, body size, and age.
While on the vegan diet, which had about 10% fat and 75% carbohydrates, people tended to eat fewer calories. The keto diet was quite different, with about 76% fat and only 10% carbs.
During the study, the researchers collected blood, urine, and stool samples to see what was happening inside their bodies. They used a fancy approach called “multi-omics” to analyze all this data.
This method helps to get a detailed picture of how the body is reacting at the biochemical, cellular, and metabolic levels. Plus, it shows changes in the microbiome – the community of bacteria living in our guts.
So, what did they find? Well, the vegan diet seemed to boost the body’s first line of defense against germs – the innate immune system. This includes our body’s general, non-specific way of fighting off invaders like viruses.
On the other hand, the keto diet seemed to enhance the adaptive immune system. This part of our immunity is more specific and develops as we get exposed to different germs or get vaccinated.
Interestingly, the keto diet affected more types of proteins in the blood than the vegan diet, and these proteins came from a variety of body tissues, like the blood, brain, and bone marrow.
The vegan diet, with its higher iron content, seemed to influence pathways linked to red blood cells.
This study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, is opening up new paths for understanding how our diets can influence our health.
It’s especially important for figuring out nutritional strategies to help with diseases like cancer or inflammatory conditions. Researchers need to do more studies to find out if these changes are good or bad and how they might be used to improve health.
If you care about nutrition, please read studies about berry that can prevent cancer, diabetes, and obesity, and the harm of vitamin D deficiency you need to know.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies about the connection between potatoes and high blood pressure, and results showing why turmeric is a health game-changer.
The research findings can be found in Cell Reports.
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