Many previous studies have shown that obesity increases the risk of heart disease.
The risk of diabetes and cancer. However, there are few studies on the relationship between obesity and immune system function.
In the latest study, Salomon Amar, an oral biologist at Boston University, and his colleagues studied this problem in mice. They fed five mice high-grade food.
Fat food increased their weight to 1.5 times that of normal mice, and then infected these obese mice with Porphyromonas gingivalis. The results showed that compared with normal mice, obese mice lost more than 40% bone around their roots within 10 days after infection.
In the next experiment, the researchers injected Porphyromonas gingivalis into the tails of normal mice and obese mice respectively. As a result, the immune system of normal mice responded positively to infection, while the immune system of obese mice responded very slowly.
The specific mechanism of obesity damaging immune system is still unclear. However, Herbert Tanowitz, an infectious disease researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the United States, believes that chronic low-level inflammation caused by obesity may have played a role.
Robert Genco, a periodontal microbiologist at the University of Buffalo in the United States, believes that this discovery also increases the possibility that the function of neutrophils in the immune system is also inhibited in obesity. Neutrophils can kill bacteria, and once suppressed, it will lead to more diseases.
Tanowitz concluded that obese people's immune system may suffer similar damage compared with mice. This problem is particularly serious because gum disease can lead to tooth loss and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. He said: "There is ample evidence that obese people will have more problems in the face of bacterial infections."