Obese People are More Venerable to Infection
According to the report in this week’s early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that, in the experiments, mice which got gum infected by the bacteria “Porphyromonas gingivalis”, then most of the obese mice had less ability to battle infection than their normal-weight counterparts. Dr. Salomon Amar as the lead researcher, associate dean for research at the university’s School of Dental Medicine said, “For years, we have had difficulty understanding why obese people have difficulty clearing an infection”. “Now we understand that dysfunction in some of the mechanisms, as a result of the obesity, explain difficulty in clearing the infection and also the difficulty in wound healing,” Amar said.
The researchers found that the obese mice had a compromised immune response to the bacteria, which made the mice more venerable to the infection. Amar’s group also looked at the mice’s white blood cells, which are the main line of defense against infection. They found that the white cells of obese mice had decrease the levels of an important signaling molecule, and some of the genes that fight inflammation were altered.
But why obesity has this effect still unclear, but the researchers think it may involve a signaling pathway that controls a protein called NF-kB. Alterations in this protein may be caused by constant exposure to food, Amar explained. “At some point, the body doesn’t respond properly to infection,” he said.
The same mechanism is at work in humans, Amar added. In fact, studies in obese people have shown they are more likely to have gum disease than non-obese people. The disease is caused by bacteria, which causes inflammation and destruction of the bone underlying teeth. “We need to be more aggressive in the use of targeted antibiotics in infections among obese people,” he said. “Also, we need to boost the immune response.”
via medcinenet
More Interesting Article :
No comments yet. Be the first.
Leave a reply