Influence of Diets Containing Olive Oil, Sunflower Oil or Hydrogenated Coconut Oil on the Immune Response of Mice.

Olive oil and immune system functions: potential involvement in immunonutrition

“…Interleukin-2 (IL-2) is an important cytokine responsible for the proliferation of T lymphocytes. Administration of diets containing olive oil for 8 or 12 weeks produced an increase of IL-2 production (Yaqoob and Calder, 1995a;de Pablo, 1998a). IL-4 is another cytokine with anti-inflammatory functions; the production of this cytokine is increased in animals after the administration for four weeks of a diet containing olive oil (unpublished results).…”

Fatty acids and the immune system: from basic science to clinical applications

“…There does indeed appear to be some loss, which can be prevented by culturing cells in autologous serum rather than foetal calf serum (Yaqoob et al 1994a or by conducting lymphocyte proliferation assays in whole-blood cultures (Yaqoob et al , 1999. Thus, cell culture conditions may be at least partly responsible for the fact that some studies report no effect or even an enhancement in lymphocyte proliferation as a result of feeding olive oil to rodents (Berger et al 1993;De Pablo et al 1998a). Both the essential fatty acids linoleic acid and a-linolenic acid can be elongated and desaturated in animal cells, forming the n-6 and n-3 families of PUFA.…”

Biological and Clinical Significance of Lipids as Modulators of Immune System Functions

“…Thus, concanavalin-A or lipopolysaccharide-stimulated lymphocytes have reduced the cellular proliferation in assays carried out in vitro or ex vivo in the presence of free fatty acids or in cell cultures from both animals and humans fed dietary lipids, respectively (10,30). Cytokine production is reduced by the action of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids or n-9 monounsaturated fatty acids (79), cytokine receptor expression is also affected (56), natural killer (NK) activity is significantly suppressed (24,43,80), phagocytic activity of macrophages is modified (12,23), and the antigenpresenting function of human monocytes is inhibited (7,20). Based on these experimental observations, we can affirm that n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids rather than n-6 polyunsaturated or n-9 monounsaturated fatty acids are directly associated to the alteration of immune and inflammatory response.…”

“…Therefore, lymphocyte proliferation (30,53,81), production of cytokines (30,79), modification of cell surface molecules (38), changes in phagocytic activity (12,23), and alteration of natural killer (NK) cell activity (24,43,80) are susceptible to be modulated by dietary lipid administration or by culture of cells in the presence of several free fatty acids. However, it is important to note that not all of the fatty acids have the same immunomodulatory properties.…”

“…Nevertheless, both n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids and saturated fatty acids have been associated to a chemopromotive role in cancer, probably due in part to a suppression of apoptosis (64). However, oleic acid (a monounsaturated fatty acid [18:1n-9] that is the main component of olive oil belonging to n-9 fatty acid series) is also capable of acting as a modulator of immune functions (23,24,40,83). Accordingly, olive oil (a traditional and essential component of the Mediterranean diet) also plays an important role in the modulation of immune functions, and therefore it has been efficiently applied in the alleviation of the symptomatology caused by rheumatoid arthritis (44,48).…”