• A Western diet which is high in fat and sugar may well increase the size of our waistline but a study, albeit in mice indicates it might increase the risk of developing sepsis. 

Research at Portland State University in Oregon has been published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on this topic. Brooke Napier, an assistant biology professor at PSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, conducted the study as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Denise Monack, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine and the senior author of the study. 

In this study, mice were fed a Western style diet. This particular diet is one based on high sugar and fat and with little fibre. One of the consequences was an increase in chronic inflammation, higher levels of sepsis and mortality compared to mice fed on what might be perceived as a healthier diet. The findings suggested that mice on the Western diet suffered a greater degree of sepsis which led to the higher levels of death.

Napier is quoted :-

“The mice’s immune system on the Western diet looked and functioned differently. It looks like the diet is manipulating immune cell function so that you’re more susceptible to sepsis, and then when you get sepsis, you die quicker.”

It appears that a substance in the diet may be the culprit and not directly related to either the increase in weight or changes to the microbiome of the gut. The microbiome relates to the population of bacteria, moulds and yeasts which inhabit our intestine and are largely thought to be highly influential in our general health.  The results are being related to dietary monitoring in patients in intensive care. This particular group of people are very susceptible to sepsis.

She is also reported as saying:-

“If you know that a diet high in fat and sugar correlates with increased susceptibility to sepsis and increased mortality, when those patients are in the Intensive Care Unit, you can make sure they’re eating the right fats and the right ratio of fats.” 

“If you could introduce a dietary intervention while they’re in the ICU to decrease their chances of manipulating their immune system in that way, you can somehow influence the outcome.”

It is worth stating that this is a study confined to mice ! However, sepsis is the 11th most fatal disease globally and indicators which reduce the incidence in people who are most sensitive to this life-threatening condition is to be welcomed. Sepsis is the body’s response to an infection. It produces shock and organ failure. 

The research group will extend the research further by examining the molecular markers in the western style diet that produced the increased levels of chronic inflammation leading to sepsis. These could then be related to patients who have a high risk to severe sepsis or to patients requiring aggressive interventionist treatment to reduce the chance of sepsis development. 

References

 Napier, B.A. et al.,  (2019) Western diet regulates immune status and the response to LPS-driven sepsis independent of diet-associated microbiome. PNAS (2019). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814273116