February 01 2019. An article published on January 22, 2019 in Scientific Reports reveals a potential anti-asthma effect for calorie restriction in mice.
"Previous studies suggested that the high fat or high sugar content in diets that led to obesity promoted inflammation and caused asthma," explained senior author Vsevolod Polotsky, MD, PhD. "However, our study shows that obesity leads to inflammation-associated asthma symptoms regardless of the makeup of the diet, and that restricting calories by any means may prevent or treat asthma by reducing inflammation."
The research involved mice allowed to consume as much as they desired of high calorie diets that included high fat, high fat plus fructose, or high trans-fat plus fructose regimens, or the same diets that were restricted to provide the number of calories of low-calorie laboratory chow received by a control group. Compared to mice that became obese by the consumption of unlimited diets, animals that consumed lower calorie diets experienced protection against the development of increased airway hyperresponsiveness that characterizes asthma, regardless of the diets’ fat or sugar content. Obese mice were found to have significant increases in lung interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β, a mediator of inflammation) messenger RNA expression compared to the restricted and control mice. In another experiment, animals that received a high fat diet for 8 weeks were protected against airway hyperresponsiveness by a drug that reduces inflammation by blocking the IL-1β receptor.
“The relationship between obesity and asthma is well established,” the authors write. “The main finding of our study was that, in mice on a high fat hypercaloric diet, caloric restriction prevented the development of airway hyperresponsiveness and upregulation of IL-1β gene expression in lung parenchyma, regardless of the diet. Taken together our data suggest that caloric restriction should be used for prevention of obese asthma and that IL-1β blockade may be considered as an adjunct therapy.”
Source: https://www.lifeexte...orieRestriction
