Scientists have long suspected that the keto diet can calm an overactive immune system and help some people suffering from diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
Now they have reason to believe it could be true.
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have found that this diet causes the mice’s guts and their microbes to produce two factors that reduce MS symptoms.
Translated to humans, this study could point to new ways to treat MS and other autoimmune diseases with supplements.
The keto diet strictly limits carbohydrate-rich foods such as bread, pasta, fruit, and sugar, but allows unlimited fat intake.
Without carbohydrates to use for fuel, your body instead breaks down fat and produces compounds called ketone bodies. Ketone bodies provide energy for cells to burn and can also alter your immune system.
In a study using a mouse model of MS, researchers found that mice that produced more of a particular ketone body called beta-hydroxybutyric acid (βHB) had less severe disease.
Additional βHB also promoted intestinal bacterial growth. Lactobacillus murinus It produces a metabolite called indole-lactic acid (ILA). This blocked the activation of T helper 17 immune cells, which are involved in MS and other autoimmune diseases.
“What was really exciting was the discovery that we could protect mice from inflammatory diseases simply by feeding them a diet supplemented with these compounds,” he said. Peter TurnbaughPh.D. Benioff Microbiome Medicine Center.
Previously, Dr. Turnbaugh showed that βHB, when secreted from the intestine, interferes with immune activation. This prompted Dr. Margaret Alexander, a postdoctoral researcher working in his lab at the time, to investigate whether the compound could alleviate MS symptoms in mice.
In a new study published on November 4, cell reportWhen the researchers looked at how a diet rich in ketone bodies affected mice that were unable to produce betaHB in their intestines, they found that the mice had more severe inflammation.
However, when the researchers supplemented the diet with betaHB, the mice’s symptoms improved.
To find out how βHB affects the gut microbiome, the research team studied three groups of mice that were fed either a keto diet, a high-fat diet, or a high-fat diet supplemented with βHB. Bacteria were isolated.
The metabolites of different microorganisms in each group were then screened in an immunoassay to confirm that the positive effects of the diet came from members of the Lactobacillus genus. L. murinus.
Two other techniques, genome sequencing and mass spectrometry, confirmed that the L. murinus they discovered produces indole-lactate, which is known to affect the immune system.
Finally, the researchers treated MS mice with ILA or L. murinus and their symptoms improved.
Turnbaugh cautioned that supplement approaches still need to be tested in people with autoimmune diseases.
“The big question now is how much of this translates into actual patients,” he says. “But I think these results give hope for the development of more tolerable alternatives to help these people, rather than asking them to follow difficult and restrictive diets.”
author: In addition to Turnbaugh and Alexander, the authors include Vaibhav Upadhyay, Rachel Rock, Lorenzo Ramirez, Kai Trepka, Diego Oreilana, Qi Yan Ang, Caroline Whitty, Jessie Turnbaugh, Darren Dumlao, Renuka Nayak, and UCSF’s John C. Newman, Patrycja Includes Puchalska. Peter Crawford of the University of Minnesota, Yuan Tian Andrew Patterson of the Pennsylvania State University;
Funding: This research was funded by the NIH (grants P30 DK063720, R01DK114034, R01HL122593, R01AR074500, R01AT011117, F32AI14745601, K99AI159227, R00AI159227-03, K08HL165106, K08 AR073930, R01AG067333, R01DK091538, R01AG069781) and Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation (DRR4216). Mr. Turnbaugh is a researcher at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco.
