Cancer immunotherapy is affected by diet! Study reveals that certain high-fat foods may lead to better health outcomes

Research has found that the interaction between a specific high-fat diet and intestinal bacteria may affect cancer immunotherapy response; related effects have only been observed in animal experiments. Show; schematic diagram. (Taken from Freepik)

Certain diets that are prone to obesity may actually lead to better response to cancer immunotherapy. A Canadian research team conducted experiments on mice and found that some high-fat diets can improve the animals' response to immunotherapy drugs. The key may lie in the interaction between food and intestinal bacteria.

The science news website "ScienceDaily" reported that this study, conducted by a research team at McGill University in Canada, was published in the journal "Nature" on July 8. Researchers compared 12 different diets to observe the response of mice treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors and found that some obesity-related diets can improve the effectiveness of treatment.

The study further found that changing diet or adding specific bacteria alone was not enough to produce the same effect. Researchers gave mice Lactobacillus johnsonii (Lactobacillus johnsonii) and paired them with a high-fat diet and observed tumor regression. The research team believes that food and intestinal bacteria may interact to affect the immune system's ability to attack tumors.

A new solution to the obesity paradox

The results also provide new clues to the "obesity paradox" in cancer research. Some past studies have found that cancer patients with higher BMIs sometimes have better responses to immunotherapy. This mouse experiment shows that this phenomenon is not necessarily caused by body weight itself, but diet and intestinal bacteria may also be involved.

However, the research results cannot be directly applied to humans. The research team emphasized that cancer patients should not deliberately consume foods that may cause obesity. The research goal is to find out the mechanism by which diet and intestinal bacteria affect immunotherapy, and to find ways to improve treatment response without bearing the risk of obesity in the future.