MS: Dietary interventions may ‘calm down the immune system’
16 February, 2020
A report in mice has displayed that a change in diet may slow diseases that involve the activation of the disease fighting capability, such as for example multiple sclerosis (MS). Could the findings bring about improved treatments in humans?
In america, nearly 1 million persons over the age of 18 you live with a diagnosis of MS, according to estimates.
MS is the most common of the inflammatory disorders with an autoimmune component, which identifies the disease fighting capability attacking and damaging healthy tissue.
In MS, the disease fighting capability attacks the myelin sheaths that protect the nerve cells in the mind and spinal-cord, disrupting nerves’ messages to and from the mind.
The result can involve muscle weakness, numbness, trouble with balance and coordination, and cognitive decline, which get worse over time.
Doctors most regularly diagnose MS in young adults, although the diagnosis can be made at any age.
At present, no treatment can prevent or slow MS without greatly increasing the chance of infection or cancer. But imagine if dietary changes could delay the disease’s onset and progression in high risk individuals?
Researchers have recently explored the role of methionine, an amino acid, in the overactive inflammatory response of conditions such as for example MS.
The effects of reducing methionine intake
While methionine is vital to a healthy immune system, it has an adverse effect on persons vulnerable to autoimmune disease.
Russell Jones, Ph.D., of the Van Andel Institute, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the study’s senior author. He comments on the findings, explaining:
“Our results suggest [that] for people predisposed to inflammatory and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis, reducing methionine intake can actually dampen the immune cells that cause disease, resulting in better outcomes.”
Various kinds of cell through the entire body produce methionine, a building block of protein and a type of fuel.
Defensive immune cells that respond to threats - called T cells - usually do not produce their own methionine and instead rely on dietary sources.
Certain animal products, such as meat and eggs, have especially high levels of methionine.
A great way that your body defends itself against threats such as pathogens, or germs, is by flooding the damaged area with T cells.
The researchers discovered that ingested methionine added fuel to the process by helping the T cells replicate and branch into specialized subtypes quicker.
However, once boosted by methionine, some of these “reprogrammed” T cells caused inflammation or swelling.
This is usually a wholesome immune response, if the swelling persists, it could cause damage such as for example whatever characterizes MS.
The scientists discovered that dramatically lowering how much methionine in the dietary plan of mice with induced MS changed the reprogramming of their T cells and limited the cells’ ability to cause swelling in the brain and spinal cord.
This, in turn, slowed the disease’s progression.
Why dietary interventions are fundamental
“These findings provide further basis for dietary interventions as future treatments for these disorders,” Jones notes.
“By restricting methionine in the diet, you’re essentially removing the fuel for this overactive inflammatory response without compromising all of those other immune system.”
- Russell Jones, Ph.D.
However, before dietary guidelines can be established, researchers must prove that humans also experience these effects.
At present, there is no comprehensive understanding of the reason for MS, although genes linked to the immune system play a role, as do environmental and metabolic factors, such as for example obesity.
“The fact that metabolic factors like obesity improve the threat of developing multiple sclerosis makes the idea of dietary intervention to relax the disease fighting capability particularly appealing,” says co-author Catherine Larochelle, Ph.D., of the University of Montreal, in Canada.
The researchers may also investigate the possibility of fabricating new medications to focus on methionine metabolism.
The present study is merely the latest to explore the role of dietary methionine limitation in disease treatment.
In 2019, a report from the Locasale Lab, at Duke University, in Durham, NC, showed that the cancer-fighting effects of chemotherapy and radiation could be improved by reducing methionine intake.
Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com