Unit of Maternal and Child Health, Department of Research, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar.
Unit of Maternal and Child Health, Department of Research, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar -
Minerva Pediatr (Torino). 2021 Apr;73(2):98-110. doi: 10.23736/S2724-5276.20.06166-6.
Autoimmune diseases comprise a wide group of diseases involving a self-response of the immune system against the host. The etiopathogenesis is very complex involving disease-specific factors but also environmental factors, among which the diet. Maternal diet during pregnancy as well as early nutrition recently attracted the interest of the scientists as contributing to the immune programming. In this paper, we reviewed the most recent literature on the effect of maternal diet and early nutrition in modulating the immune system in a selected subset of autoimmune diseases: type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, juvenile idiopathic arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Particularly, we focused our narrative on the role of maternal and perinatal nutrition in the epigenetic mechanisms underlying the auto-immune response. Maternal diet during pregnancy as well as breastfeeding and early nutrition play a big role in many epigenetic mechanisms. Most of the nutrients consumed by the mother and the infant are known exerting epigenetic functions, such as folate, methionine, zinc, vitamins B12 and D, fibers, casein and gliadin, and they were linked to gene expression changes in the immune pathways. Despite the common role of maternal diet, breastfeeding and early nutrition in almost all the autoimmune diseases, each disease seems to have specific diet-driver epigenetic mechanisms that require further investigations. The research in this field is opening new routes to establishing a precision nutrition approach to the auto-immune diseases.
自身免疫性疾病包括一大组涉及免疫系统对宿主自身产生反应的疾病。其发病机制非常复杂，涉及特定疾病因素和环境因素，其中就包括饮食。妊娠期间的母体饮食以及最近的早期营养引起了科学家们的兴趣，因为它们可能会影响免疫编程。本文综述了关于母体饮食和早期营养在调节自身免疫性疾病中特定子集的免疫系统方面的最新文献：1 型糖尿病、乳糜泻、炎症性肠病、幼年特发性关节炎和类风湿关节炎。特别地，我们重点介绍了母体和围产期营养在自身免疫反应背后的表观遗传机制中的作用。妊娠期间的母体饮食以及母乳喂养和早期营养在许多表观遗传机制中起着重要作用。母亲和婴儿摄入的大多数营养素都具有表观遗传功能，如叶酸、蛋氨酸、锌、维生素 B12 和 D、纤维、酪蛋白和麦胶，它们与免疫途径中的基因表达变化有关。尽管母体饮食、母乳喂养和早期营养在几乎所有自身免疫性疾病中都起着共同作用，但每种疾病似乎都有特定的饮食驱动的表观遗传机制，需要进一步研究。该领域的研究为建立针对自身免疫性疾病的精准营养方法开辟了新途径。
