This week ZOE published findings from a study investigating post-meal inflammation. The full study can be found here, in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Before we look at the key findings and consequences of this study, let’s discuss what post-meal inflammation is. After we consume meals, these foods enter into our bodies and the fats and sugars within them enter into our bloodstream. To make sure we have a balanced level of minerals, nutrients, fats and sugars in our bodies, we produce different hormones to regulate these levels. Under normal circumstances, our bodies are successfully able to regulate the foods we eat. However, in some circumstances, such as high blood sugar, if we consume the wrong foods our bodies cannot regulate this and it leads to a variety of negative consequences including inflammation.
Inflammation is not necessarily always bad and can be part of our bodies normal reaction to particular foods or even injury. But, constant inflammation is harmful and associated to increased risks of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Inflammation can be measured by identifying symptoms such as weight gain, depression, stomach pains or problems digesting foods. In addition, we can identify inflammation using levels of biomarkers in our blood. Biomarkers are essentially molecules, tissues or fluids in our body whose presence or absence can indicate if our body is operating normally. The most common biomarkers for dietary inflammation are called Glycoprotein acetylation and Interleukin 6. These biomarkers are used because they have been shown to consistently change with food intake and this change is clinically important (1,2).
In their latest study, Mazidi and co-authors measured Glycoprotein acetylation and Interleukin 6 in 1002 participants. Participants ate the same meal at the same time. The markers were then measured at different time points to see how inflammation varied within and between participants. The average age of participants in the study was 47 years and the majority of participants were women. It is also important to note that this study was not ethnically diverse and this may be an important factor affecting inflammation. Future research will likely try to use a more diverse participant set to overcome this limitation. Results showed that both biomarkers increased significantly after participants received their first meals. Females tended to have higher Interleukin 6 concentrations after meals, whereas males had higher Glycoprotein acetylation concentrations. Overall, results of the study found that the extent to which individuals experienced inflammation after eating the exact same meal at the same times varied considerably. Even among participants who were twins, there was a great deal of variation – some individuals had a lot of post-meal inflammation while others had very little. Those experiencing higher levels of inflammation tended to be males, older participants and postmenopausal women. In addition, increased levels of triglycerides was shown to be largely responsible for post-meal inflammation.
But what does this mean? Ultimately, these results indicate that our individual, biological make-up (and perhaps gut biodiversity) plays a role in defining the extent to which we experience dietary related inflammation. Post-meal inflammation may affect our future risks of chronic diseases and therefore understanding the way in which people respond to meals and their biomarker levels is important. The study results suggest that prevention and treatment of post-meal inflammation and associated consequences such as diabetes and obesity may be best treated at a personalised and individual level. While these findings may place a lot of pressure on the individual to try and identify and prevent inflammation from occurring, rest assured there are some recommendations already available. These have been studied by ZOE and can be found here. They include understanding your own normal response to certain foods, limiting your intake of high fat and sugar foods and increasing intakes of fibres and ‘anti-inflammatory foods’ such as fruits and vegetables.
For more information on this study or to even take part in research yourself visit the ZOE website.
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