Medical News – A High Fiber Diet Can Help Protect You from Asthma

A recent study found that eating more fruits and vegetables helped decrease the rates of allergies and inflammation in the lungs.

The study was performed to discover if there is a link between Western diets that have been including less fruits and vegetables over the last 50 years and asthma rates rising during the same time.

Researchers used laboratory mice to test the connection between fiber and asthma, since parts of their immune system are almost indistinguishable from that of humans. The mice were separated into 3 groups – those that ate a low-fiber diet, those that ate a standard diet with some fermentable fiber and those that ate a diet enriched with fermentable fibers. The mice were then exposed to dust mites to provoke an allergic response.

Findings proved that mice on the low-fiber diet had the strongest allergic reaction, while mice on the fiber-rich diet showed the strongest protective-effect against a reaction.

Researchers discovered that eating food rich in dietary fiber helped release fatty acids into the bloodstream and affected how the immune system behaves in the lungs.  They found that the protective effect occurred when the fiber reached the intestines and was transformed into fatty acids.

These fatty acids go on to affect the development of immune cells in bone marrow. Once an allergen – in this case, the dust mites – is detected in the lungs, those immune cells respond where they trigger an allergic response. The strength of the reaction depends on the effect of those short-chain fatty acids.

Professor Benjamin Marsland of Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, who conducted the study, believes the evidence gives another reason to eat fruits and vegetables.

Source:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270827.php

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