WIKIMEDIA, JON SULLIVANAsthma rates in Western countries have surged in recent decades, perhaps in part because of eating habits that largely ignore fiber. Researchers have shown that mice fed a low-fiber diet reacted more strongly with asthma-like symptoms to allergens than mice that were given more fiber.
It appears that gut bacteria are mediating these responses. Animals that ate pectin had stool with more bacteria that produce circulating short chain fatty acids, Benjamin Marsland from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland reported in Nature Medicine this week (January 5). He and his colleagues treated mice with one such fatty acid, propionate. Again, the animals showed reduced asthmatic responses to allergens compared to animals not given propionate, and they had altered production of immune cells in the bone marrow.
“Our study is the first to show that diet can influence the production of immune cells in the bone marrow, which could have major implications given that immune cell precursors leave the bone marrow and spread to tissues throughout the body, including the lung,” ...
