Study finds dietary fibre promote allergy-related type of inflammation in lung, gut

ACCORDING to researchers, a type of dietary fibre called inulin, which is used in health supplements and have certain anti-inflammatory properties, can also promote an allergy-related type of inflammation in the lung and gut, as well as other parts of the body.

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Researchers from Friedman Center for Nutrition and Inflammation and Jill Roberts Institute for Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Weill Cornell Medicine and in the Boyce Thompson Institute on Cornell's Ithaca campus published their findings in the journal Nature. The study found that dietary inulin fiber alters the metabolism of certain gut bacteria, which in turn triggers what scientists call type 2 inflammation in the gut and lungs. This type of inflammation is thought to have evolved in mammals chiefly to defend against parasitic worm ("helminth") infections, and is also part of normal wound-healing, although its inappropriate activation underlies allergies, asthma and other inflammatory diseases.