Assessing the Affects of Short Term Fasting on the Immune System
One of the interesting findings from research into fasting mimicking diets was that parts of the immune system contract, cell counts diminishing, after about three days. Those cell counts return to normal after the fasting ends. This winnowing and replacement seems beneficial, shedding damaged and problematic cells. In this paper, researchers look at other aspects of the immune system, finding differing beneficial outcomes after a three day fast.
Previous studies have shown that long-term light or moderate fasting such as intermittent fasting can improve health and prolong lifespan. However, in humans short-term intensive fasting, a complete water-only fasting has little been studied. Here, we used multi-omics tools to evaluate the impact of short-term intensive fasting on immune function by comparison of the CD45+ leukocytes from the fasting subjects before and after 72 hour fasting. Transcriptomic and proteomic profiling of CD45+ leukocytes revealed extensive expression changes, marked by higher gene upregulation than downregulation after fasting. Functional enrichment of differentially expressed genes and proteins exposed several pathways critical to metabolic and immune cell functions.
Specifically, short-term intensive fasting enhanced autophagy levels through upregulation of key members involved in the upstream signals and within the autophagy machinery, whereas apoptosis was reduced by down-turning of apoptotic gene expression, thereby increasing the leukocyte viability. When focusing on specific leukocyte populations, peripheral neutrophils are noticeably increased by short-term intensive fasting. Finally, proteomic analysis of leukocytes showed that short-term intensive fasting not only increased neutrophil degranulation, but also increased cytokine secretion. Our results suggest that short-term intensive fasting boost immune function, in particular innate immune function, at least in part by remodeling leukocytes expression profile.