The Influence of Nutrition Upon Resistance to Infection

Abstract

The possibility that diet may have some influence upon the incidence, course, and final outcome of infection, is a comparatively recent idea. Since 1900 the idea has gained ground, and quite a body of work has appeared in the literature. The task of reviewing it is not easy for several reasons: in many cases the results are contradictory, in ethers they may be difficult of interpretation because of many variables At best the literature is a scattered one. In considering the actual infection, the author has confined himself to infections of bacterial origin, and has not included, for lack of space, much excellent and suggestive work on infections of protozoan and metazoan origin. In general one may say that the work in this field is in its infancy, but that there is much suggestive work that merits further study, Vitamin B complex. …

Lymphocyte Transformation in Malnourished Children

“…In view of the evidence linking in vitro lymphocyte transformation with in vivo DNA synthesis and cell-mediated immune responses, the results reported here furnish experimental support for the long-held clinical impression that malnutrition predisposes to infection (Werkman, 1923;Clausen, 1934Clausen, , 1935Cannon, 1942Cannon, , 1945Kahn et al, 1957;Scrimshaw et al, 1968;Lowenstein, 1970). Further work will need to be done to elucidate the mechanism(s) by which lymphocyte function is impaired in malnutrition.…”

Scurvy and Tuberculous Peritonitis

“…Russell, Read, and Rouse (1944) found that scurvy led to extensive tuberculous lesions and widespread dissemination in experimentally infected guinea-pigs. Similar results had been obtained by Clausen (1934), Grant (1930), Greene, Steiner, and Kramer (1936), Steinbach and Klein (1941). Abbasy, Harris, and Ellman (1937) found that in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis there was a ' deficit in vitamin C' as shown by a lowered urinary excretion of the vitamin and a diminished response to a test dose; Abbasy, Gray Hill, and Harris (1936) also showed a low rate of excretion of vitamin C (an average of 9 mg. a day) in 23 cases of active surgical tuberculosis.…”

Nutrition of the Host and Natural Resistance to Infection

“…All this is not to deny that if acute deficiencies of known nutritional essentials are produced, resistance may be lowered. For references to this part of the literature, the reviews of Clausen (15), Robertson (16), and Perla and Marmorston (17) should be consulted. Against much of this type of experimentation the criticism may be leveled that the experimentkl animals were really debilitated ones whose fives were already in jeopardy from the consequences of the produced deficiency, so it is small wonder that under the added insult of the infection the animals succumb.…”