Nature or nurture: Let food be your epigenetic medicine in chronic inflammatory disorders

Abstract

Numerous clinical, physiopathological and epidemiological studies have underlined the detrimental or beneficial role of nutritional factors in complex inflammation related disorders such as allergy, asthma, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. Today, nutritional research has shifted from alleviating nutrient deficiencies to chronic disease prevention. It is known that lifestyle, environmental conditions and nutritional compounds influence gene expression. Gene expression states are set by transcriptional activators and repressors and are often locked in by cell-heritable chromatin states. Only recently, it has been observed that the environmental conditions and daily diet can affect transgenerational gene expression via "reversible" heritable epigenetic mechanisms. Epigenetic changes in DNA methylation patterns at CpG sites (epimutations) or corrupt chromatin states of key inflammatory genes and noncoding RNAs, recently emerged as major governing factors in cancer, chronic inflammatory and metabolic disorders. Reciprocally, inflammation, metabolic stress and diet composition can also change activities of the epigenetic machinery and indirectly or directly change chromatin marks. This has recently launched re-exploration of anti-inflammatory bioactive food components for characterization of their effects on epigenome modifying enzymatic activities (acetylation, methylation, phosphorylation, ribosylation, oxidation, ubiquitination, sumoylation). This may allow to improve healthy aging by reversing disease prone epimutations involved in chronic inflammatory and metabolic disorders.

Pediatric Obesity-Related Asthma: The Role of Metabolic Dysregulation

“…137,138 However, it is also evident that not all obese children with metabolic dysregulation or inflammation develop asthma, suggesting that differences in genetic susceptibility may also underlie the development of pulmonary morbidity in only some obese children. Although few studies have investigated the genetics or epigenetics of obesity-related asthma, we discuss the existing literature and the direction of association observed in these initial investigations.…”

“…These findings suggest that molecules associated with both inflammation and metabolic dysregulation are differentially methylated among obese asthmatics. Because dietary intake and nutrients modify DNA methylation, 138 these pilot results highlight the need for additional studies to investigate the effect of diet modification and related weight loss on DNA methylation and its association with insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and systemic inflammation among obese asthmatics.…”

Resveratrol and health – A comprehensive review of human clinical trials

“…Traditionally, chronic diseases have been treated through pharmaceutical interventions following a medical diagnosis. Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing emphasis on using lifestyle changes and nutritional modifications to prevent and treat chronic diseases [2,3]. Caloric restriction is an effective means of preventing chronic disease and ultimately increasing lifespan in laboratory animals [4].…”

Dietary factors, epigenetic modifications and obesity outcomes: Progresses and perspectives

“…In relation to body weight, the reports that have analyzed differences in the percentage of methylation in cytosines of different genes have shown variations of about 10-20% at the most (Bouchard et al, 2010;Milagro et al, 2011). On paper, it seems difficult to modulate the epigenetic drug doses to revert such subtle differences, but the identification in the last years of several nutrients and food compounds that are able to slightly modify the epigenetic patterns of different cell lines and tissues are encouraging in order to look for functional foods that could help to combat or prevent metabolic diseases (vel Szic et al, 2010). Thus, the large differences in DNA methylation observed between human preadipocytes and mature adipocytes (Zhu 2012) suggest that epigenetics plays an important role in the process of adipocyte differentiation.…”