Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

The Western lifestyle has lasting effects on metaflammation

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 19, pages 267–268 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Chronic consumption of a Western diet along with sedentary behaviour causes chronic metabolic inflammation (termed metaflammation) and is ‘memorized’ by innate immune cells through long-lasting metabolic and epigenetic cellular reprogramming. Lifestyle-associated pathologies have reached epidemic proportions and require a better understanding of the causes of metaflammation and ways to translate this to measures that protect the public from unhealthy diets.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Risk factors and mitigation for metaflammation.

References

  1. Olshansky, S. J. et al. A potential decline in life expectancy in the United States in the 21st century. N. Engl. J. Med. 352, 1138–1145 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Ludwig, D. S. Lifespan weighed down by diet. JAMA 315, 2269–2270 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Reither, E. N., Olshansky, S. J. & Yang, Y. New forecasting methodology indicates more disease and earlier mortality ahead for today’s younger Americans. Health Aff. (Millwood) 30, 1562–1568 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. David, L. A. et al. Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome. Nature 505, 559–563 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Wilson, Q. N. et al. Greater microbial translocation and vulnerability to metabolic disease in healthy aged female monkeys. Sci. Rep. 8, 11373 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Netea, M. et al. Trained immunity: a program of innate immune memory in health and disease. Science 352, aaf1098 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Christ, A. et al. Western diet triggers NLRP3-dependent innate immune reprogramming. Cell 172, 162–175 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Perez, M. F. & Lehner, B. Intergenerational and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in animals. Nature 21, 143–151 (2019).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Bhaskaran, K. et al. Association of BMI with overall and cause-specific mortality: a population-based cohort study of 3.6 million adults in the UK. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 6, 944–953 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Li, Y. et al. Impact of healthy lifestyle factors on life expectancies in the US population. Circulation 138, 345–355 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Research Council consolidator grant InflammAct, the US National Institutes of Health grant 1R01HL112661 and grants provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft EXC2151 — 390873048, SFB 1123; TRRs 83, 57.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Innate Immunity, University Hospitals, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Anette Christ & Eicke Latz

  2. Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Anette Christ & Eicke Latz

Authors
  1. Anette Christ
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Eicke Latz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eicke Latz.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

E.L. is co-founder and consultant of IFM Therapeutics. A.C. declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Christ, A., Latz, E. The Western lifestyle has lasting effects on metaflammation. Nat Rev Immunol 19, 267–268 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-019-0156-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-019-0156-1

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing