Last year, my colleagues and I published Nutrient Signaling, an evolutionary hypothesis for the immune modulation by nutrients. Click here and here for more. We were prompted to write this paper because of these observations:

1) Chronic inflammatory diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, and atherosclerosis have reached epidemic proportions and comprise a growing proportion of global mortality and morbidity.

2)  A growing body of evidence has shown that modern diet habits – including overnutrition and exposure to certain nutrients such as fats and refined carbohydrates – contributes to chronic inflammatory diseases.

3) Nutrients have vastly differing effects on the immune system. Certain nutrients promote pro-inflammatory signaling and dangerous changes in metabolism; other nutrients reduce immune activation, have anti-inflammatory signaling properties, and protect against  metabolic diseases. For instance a new RCT showed that saturated fats increase post prandial inflammation, while monounsaurated fats do not: The effect of two iso-caloric meals containing equal amounts of fats with a different fat composition on the inflammatory and metabolic markers in apparently healthy volunteers

These observations raise the question, why?

To read more, check my post on the Evolution & Medicine Review.

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Joe Alcock

Emergency Physician, Educator, Researcher, interested in the microbiome, evolution, and medicine