Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Quirks and Quarks8:21Immune cells that fight infection get a boost from food
Scientists have found that certain white blood cells, known as T-cells, can work more effectively after a meal.
The T-cells behave like a microscopic army on the lookout to remove viruses, bacteria or precancerous tissue from the body, says Greg Delgoffe, an immunologist at the University of Pittsburgh and the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.
The findings, published in April in the journal Nature, suggest eating is an important part of fighting infection. They could help researchers improve immune therapies and help doctors time vaccinations.
“Napoleon famously said an army marches on its stomach, right — which is you have to feed your troops … and that is absolutely what we found in the immune system,” Delgoffe, a senior author of the study, told Quirks & Quarks’ host Bob McDonald.
Fasted T-cells vs fed T-cells
To study this, researchers collected blood samples from 31 healthy volunteers twice in the same day: first thing in the morning after an overnight fast, and six hours later after they had a meal. After eating, the T-cells more easily took in fats and sugars, and had more efficient energy-producing mitochondria, showing that a meal made a real difference.
Additional experiments in mice showed fed mice also produced more memory cells, a special subset of T-cells that recognize pathogens, like viruses or bacteria, the body has encountered before.
Eating a balanced diet is important for health, whether someone is fighting a cold or cancer.– Russell Jones, chair of metabolism and nutritional programming at Van Andel Institute
Once a T-cell is activated by the presence of a foreign invader, like a virus or bacteria, it needs to grow and divide extremely rapidly to form an army of cells throughout the body to curb infection. This massive expansion of cells is very metabolically demanding, and is one of the reasons you feel fatigued when ill, says Delgoffe.
Delgoffe notes a limitation of their study is that they didn’t control what people ate, but the post-meal effects on T-cells were remarkably consistent regardless of what the participants ate. They did note that a balanced diet provided the biggest boost.
Possible aid to cancer treatments
These findings, along with a growing body of research, suggest nutrition could boost some cancer treatments, called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapies. These treatments tweak T-cell receptors to make them especially good at finding threats, like cancerous cells. In the study, Delgoffe and his colleagues found that CAR T-cells made from people who had eaten were better at controlling cancer, than those from people who had fasted.
The study’s findings highlight opportunities to develop diet plans that could boost the immune system and make existing cancer treatments more effective, says Russell Jones, a professor and chair of the department of metabolism and nutritional programming at Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich., who was not involved in this study.
“This study adds to a growing understanding of the tight links between diet, metabolism and immunity, especially in the context of cancer,” Jones wrote in an email.
“It’s a complicated and nuanced picture … but the big takeaway is this: eating a balanced diet is important for health, whether someone is fighting a cold or cancer.”
