For Nerds
Deep Dive into Inflammatory Effects on Immune System [ from https://arizonanaturopath.com/fat-profile-of-meat-surprise-worst-meat/ ]
The immune system is an elegant design system that supports all living things. There are a myriad of factors, agents and triggers within the human immune system.
It works to:
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- maintaining tissue integrity,
- only be activated in relatively rare conditions that are acute
In conditions that are acute in nature, a small subset of foreign proteins and nucleic acids, and pathogenic microbes. In disease it is locked into being turned on or off and can be turned on in cerrtain tissues and turned off in other tissues.
Friendly Microbes called the microbiome, actually participate in immune function:
The microbiome primarily found on surfaces that interface with the external environment are on the skin and in the gut and its mucous membrane lining. The microbiome participates in immune function by constantly priming and muting the immune system and also preventing residency of pathogenic microbes. The resident microbes in a healthy gut or skin, the microbiome act as sensory devices providing input along the gut/skin-brain axis regarding the surrounding environment.
The role fats play in inflammation
Certain circulating inflammatory fats promote inflammatory cytokines like IL-18, IL1-b, IL-1-a that damage the lining of the blood vessels. This damage is primarily to the various antennas found on the membranes of the cells lining the gut and vessel lumen, called Endocalyx. These antennas or glycocalyses (specialized sugar-proteins) sense and direct traffic in and out of cells. Numerous agents can damage the Endocalyx including LPS, the elimination products of bacteria called lipopolysaccharides, leaky gut allowing excessive quantities of undigested products of digestion or incomplete digestion leak into the blood from the intestines, dietary lectins and antigens, and the very inflammatory fatty acids including oleic and a-linolenic, and including excessive omega 6 fatty acids, pesticides, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, viruses and pathogenic bacteria. One of the major systems involved in the turning off of attack on foreign agents is called the NLRP3 inflammasome.
Description of the NLRP3 Inflammasome
The NLRP3 Inflammasome a complex proteome involved in priming the immune system reactions. It is contained in a complex of feedback loops of metabolic pathways leading to disease. It is primarily triggered and perpetuated by DAMPS, PAMPS and HAMPS. The destructive cytokines, killer cells and complement produced as a result of NLRP3 activation are designed to keep in check molecules that can harm tissues of the body.
Destruction of the Endocalyx, the antennas on the surface of cells, cause calcium, potassium, sodium ion leakage into and out of cells. In the scheme of the inflammatory processes, the NLRP3, production of IL1-b and IL-1a, IL-18, are subsequently triggered and turn up a positive feedback, by low potassium, high calcium, oxalates, pathogens including viruses, foreign particles, and many others.
Additionally MTOR, is over stimulated overproducing immature stem cells that can become cancerous. The MTOR protein agent, inhibits programmed cell death. This becomes increasingly problematic as dying mitochondria are no longer eliminated. Sick and dying cells and mitochondria sustain chronic inflammation. Consequential disorganization of the activity of mast cells become the hidden background of autoimmune pathology in varying degrees. Autoimmunity is basically an over-reactive or under-reactive immune system.
What the Research Shows: [see link: References]
According to French et al. [29] the most undesirable fatty acid is myristic acid, which only represents 1.3% in chicken fat by-products (Table 3), 3% in beef tallow and 3.5% in pork backfat (Table 5). Several authors have reported that palmitic acid has a low hypercholesterolemic effect and stearic acid has no effect because it becomes oleic acid in the body [30] and so does not influence blood cholesterol levels. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7466361/
However, according to Freigang 2023, Oleic acid selectively elicits IL-1a secretion from macrophages. IL-1a is a powerful trigger of inflammation and promoter of chronic inflammatory processes. IL-1a producing fatty acids like oleic acid, arachidonic acid found abundantly in arteriosclerotic plaque can potentially increase the size of plaque. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23995233/
Answer Key to search for α-Linolenic acid fatty acid:
The α-Linolenic acid, aka alpha-linolenic acid or ALA; chemical structure notation: n−3, all-cis-9,12,15-octadecatrienoic acid or omega-3 named by its lipid number: 18:3, ALA is found in many seeds and oils, including flaxseed, walnuts, chia, hemp, and many common vegetable oils. it is named In physiological literature, The 18:3 is a carboxylic acid with an 18-carbon chain and three cis double bonds. Wikipedia