Eating a Western diet low in fiber, high in fat and sugar can put you at higher risk of severe sepsis and death.

‘People who eat a Western diet low in fiber, high in fat and sugar are at a higher risk of severe sepsis and death.’
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The study takes a closer look at how the Western diet affects the severity and outcome of sepsis. Sepsis, the body’s reaction to fighting an infection, can lead to shock and organ failure. It’s the 11th most common cause of death worldwide.Read More..





Brooke Napier, an assistant biology professor at PSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, conducted the study as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Denise Monack, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine and the senior author of the study. Napier brought the project with her when she came to PSU and continues to build on the findings in her research lab.
In the study, mice that were fed the Western diet -- a diet characterized as being low in fiber and high in fat and sugar -- showed an increase in chronic inflammation, sepsis severity and higher mortality rates than mice that were fed a normal diet. Napier said the findings suggest the mice had more severe sepsis and were dying faster because of something in their diet, not because of the weight gain or microbiome, the body’s community of bacteria.
"The mice’s immune system on the Western diet looked and functioned differently," she said. "It looks like the diet is manipulating immune cell function so that you’re more susceptible to sepsis, and then when you get sepsis, you die quicker."
Napier said the findings can help hospitals better monitor the diets of patients in the intensive care unit since they’re already the ones most likely to develop sepsis.
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Napier said the team also identified molecular markers in Western diet-fed mice that could be used as predictors or biomarkers for patients that are at high risk for severe sepsis or patients that may need more aggressive treatment.
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Looking ahead, Napier’s lab is studying whether specific fats in the high-fat diet might be influencing immune cell function.
"If it’s the fats in the diet that are doing the reprogramming, then it’ll be applicable to any diet that’s high-fat like the ketogenic diet or any sort of Atkins-related diet," Napier said.
Co-authors of the study included Marta Andres-Terre, Liliana Massis, Andrew Hryckowian, Steven Higginbottom, Katherine Cumnock, Kerriann Casey, Kyler Lugo, David Schneider, Justin Sonnenburg, and Denise Monack, all from Stanford University School of Medicine.
Source-Eurekalert