The medicinal power of food resembles the effect of drugs

According to the researchers, more attention to the medicinal effect of food could help to develop much more targeted diets that counter or prevent certain disorders.

A Mediterranean diet, fibre-rich food, fresh fruit and vegetables are now a familiar recipe for nutritional advice. But in by no means all cases it is clear exactly why they are healthy. Researchers from Utrecht University are now changing that. They find that surprisingly many nutrients have a similar effect to medicines.

The scientists made an inventory of more than two hundred studies that showed how nutrients affect cells in our body. They mainly looked at the way in which nutrients can bind to cells and subsequently influence responses of the immune system.

Many drugs work in the same way, binding to so-called receptors in cells. The cells respond to this by, for example, inhibiting an inflammatory or allergic reaction.

The focus on inflammatory reactions is not for nothing. In the vast majority of diseases that are not contagious, such as cancer, diabetes and heart and lung diseases, inflammatory reactions play an important role. This group of conditions is responsible for about 70 percent of deaths worldwide.

Nutrients adhere just like drugs

“Of course, we have known for a long time that our diet is related to our health,” says study leader Saskia Braber, affiliated with the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Utrecht University. “But that knowledge is very broad. It encompasses the entire diet, including all kinds of food. We now see that some nutrients can attach very specifically to specific receptors of specific cells, just like drugs. It is very surprising that nutrients can push the processes in cells in a positive direction in such a targeted manner.”

It is very surprising that nutrients can push the processes in cells in a positive direction in such a targeted way

To gain more insight into this, the researchers made an inventory of fifteen types of cell receptors and the nutrients that act on them. This resulted in a very comprehensive overview of dozens of nutrients, the receptors they act on and the immune responses they trigger.

Better diets against disease

According to Braber and colleagues, this insight could lead to specific diets that are tailored to combat certain conditions. Braber: “You can, for example, find out which immune response is involved in a certain disease. You then find out which cell receptors are responsible for this. And if you know that receptor, you can also check which nutrients act on it.”

Building bridges

With this research, Braber and colleagues hope to build a bridge between pharmacologists and nutrition researchers. Braber: “Pharmacologists did not accept the insights from nutritional research for a long time. They regarded food as a kind of cluttered slurry of substances and substances that all have different effects. Recently, that view has started to tilt, and pharmacologists are realizing that food can indeed have very specific medicinal effects.”

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