{"id":5070,"date":"2019-12-18T07:16:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T07:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=5070"},"modified":"2019-12-19T01:46:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T01:46:35","slug":"ketogenic-diet-helps-tame-flu-virus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/ketogenic-diet-helps-tame-flu-virus\/","title":{"rendered":"Ketogenic diet helps tame flu virus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>A high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet like the Keto regimen has its fans, but influenza apparently isn&#8217;t one of them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mice fed a ketogenic diet were better able to combat the flu virus than mice fed food high in carbohydrates, according to a new Yale University study published Nov. 15 in the journal&nbsp;<em>Science Immunology<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ketogenic diet &#8212; which for people includes meat, fish, poultry, and non-starchy vegetables &#8212; activates a subset of T cells in the lungs not previously associated with the immune system&#8217;s response to influenza, enhancing mucus production from airway cells that can effectively trap the virus, the researchers report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This was a totally unexpected finding,&#8221; said co-senior author Akiko Iwasaki, the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The research project was the brainchild of two trainees &#8212; one working in Iwasaki&#8217;s lab and the other with co-senior author Visha Deep Dixit, the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Comparative Medicine and of Immunobiology. Ryan Molony worked in Iwasaki&#8217;s lab, which had found that immune system activators called inflammasomes can cause harmful immune system responses in their host. Emily Goldberg worked in Dixit&#8217;s lab, which had shown that the ketogenic diet blocked formation of inflammasomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two wondered if diet could affect immune system response to pathogens such as the flu virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They showed that mice fed a ketogenic diet and infected with the influenza virus had a higher survival rate than mice on a high-carb normal diet. Specifically, the researchers found that the ketogenic diet triggered the release of gamma delta T cells, immune system cells that produce mucus in the cell linings of the lung &#8212; while the high-carbohydrate diet did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When mice were bred without the gene that codes for gamma delta T cells, the ketogenic diet provided no protection against the influenza virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This study shows that the way the body burns fat to produce ketone bodies from the food we eat can fuel the immune system to fight flu infection,&#8221; Dixit said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet like the Keto regimen has its fans, but influenza apparently isn&#8217;t one of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[801,2259],"class_list":["post-5070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsmakers","tag-diet","tag-keto-diet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5072,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070\/revisions\/5072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}