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Mice fed a ketogenic diet—in which 90 percent of calories come from fat and less than 1 percent from carbohydrates—were less susceptible to the influenza A virus, according to a study published today (November 15) in Science Immunology. The protective effects seem to be mediated by an increase of so-called gamma-delta T cells in the animals’ lungs that induce the epithelial cells in the airway to make more mucus to trap the virus.
The project began as a discussion between Ryan Molony, at the time a grad student in the Yale School of Medicine lab of Akiko Iwasaki, and Emily Goldberg, a postdoc in Vishwa Dixit’s lab at Yale. Dixit’s group had shown in 2015 in mice and in human cells that a ketogenic diet blocks an inflammation pathway triggered by a protein complex that plays a role in some autoimmune disorders. A year later, Iwasaki’s ...
