As the amount of food Americans consume continues to increase and our health continues to decrease as a result, another good reason for cutting calories has been discovered through scientific research. A new study from Germany shows a reduced-calorie diet has the power to change your gut’s microbiome and slow down the natural deterioration of the immune system with aging known as immune senescence.
Scientists from the University of Tübingen studied the effects of a low-calorie diet on the immune system and published their findings in the journal Microbiome.
It is estimated around 2 billion people in the world are overweight and that makes them more susceptible to a variety of diseases. Obesity is one of the leading causes of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. It is also a source of inflammation which has the ability to weaken the immune system through the accumulation of specific memory T and B cells.
The accumulation of those cells is a characteristic of the age-related change called immune senescence. Research has shown the development of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes can be delayed or eliminated through the use of a low-calorie diet. The exact reason for that delay and what role the gut microbiome plays is what researchers were hoping to find through this study.
Scientists analyzed the effects of a low-calorie diet on an obese female subject. She was limited to 800 calories per day for a total of eight weeks. Scientists also worked with a group of mice which underwent a gut microbiome transplant of diet-altered microbiota for study purposes.
"In this way, we were able to determine the sole effects of the diet-shaped gut microbiome on metabolism and the immune system," said Reiner Jumpertz von Schwartzenberg, one of the study’s authors.
The transplanted gut microbes were able to improve the glucose metabolism and decrease fat deposits. Additionally, mass cytometry was able to show levels of specific memory T and B cells were lower.
"This indicates delayed immune senescence," said lead study author Julia Sbierski-Kind. "These findings suggest that the positive effects of a low-calorie diet on metabolism and the immune system are mediated via the gut microbiome."
Researchers were excited by the findings but said the scope of the investigation needs to be increased to include more study subjects in order to validate the results.
"An improved understanding of the complex interplay between diet, the microbiome and the immune system may set the stage for the development of new microbiome-based therapeutic avenues to treat metabolic and immune diseases," said Jumpertz.